Devil's Bane
by Bananas102
Summary: When a social worker pulls a mute little boy from a neglected home, he's put into a group home, where he meets the boy that would become his big brother. Warnings: abuse, violence, ect. PLEASE REVIEW!
1. Chapter 1

**I've been dwelling on this for a while, and this is the first One Piece fanfiction I've ever written. I tried to put as much effort as I could into this, though I have no idea how I'm going to end this...**

**Anyway, please enjoy! Reviews are not only welcome, but treasured :)**

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He sat on the carpet, big brown eyes observing it with open curiosity. His small fingers pulled at the stiff strands, long damaged by dirt and rough play. It used to be rather beautiful, with chocolate colored swirls dancing across a palette of cream.

Over time the chocolate turned a dull black, and the cream had become stained as an unflattering brown.

But he didn't take notice of its tattered appearance, enraptured by the beauty only he could still see.

There was the shuffle of footsteps, and he raised his head to see a woman standing at the door. She was pretty, with ginger hair pulled back in a ponytail and eyes like the morning sky.

She wore a green, silky shirt with feathers, dark dress pants, and shiny black heels. The woman approached slowly, her eyes widening as she looked around the room, taking in the take-out boxes lying on the floor and on the couch.

She saw the empty pizza boxes and crumbs and sauce smeared on nearly every flat surface she could see. A table was overturned, and there was the shriveled up remains of what could have possible been a raw egg sticking on the armrest on a chair.

All in all, it was disgusting.

The house looked awful and uncared for, and the smell of sick hung in the air. It was silent, and the place was seemingly devoid of life, except for the little boy sitting in the center of the carpet.

He was incredibly small, with thin arms and legs, probably from malnutrition. On his head was a mass of ruffled black hair that hung in strings from not being washed for god knows how long.

His skin was smudged with dirt, much like his ripped clothes, a navy blue shirt and black shorts. The boy's eyes, however, were clear. Brown and warm and kind, they shone with a special kind of innocence, the kind that could survive through anything. Under the left one was a white scar; a sign of its age.

The woman stepped towards him carefully, like one would approach an animal ready to bolt. "Hello," she said, her voice gentle in the soft. It shattered the silence, and the boy blinked.

She crouched down a few feet away, trying to keep from touching too much. "I'm Wendy," she began, smiling encouragingly, "Can you tell me what your name is?" The boy merely blinked again, and Wendy licked her lips.

"I'm going to take you out of here, okay?" The boy watched her with interest. "We'll go to a place where it's safe." Slowly, Wendy stretched out her hand, desperately hoping the boy would understand, so she could get him out of here.

Wendy smiled at him again, putting in as much love and care as she could. The boy's lips parted, and he stared at her. Her heart clenched when she realized he probably wasn't used to being shown affection.

Then he raised a hand, and in a huge show of trust that made her eyes prickle with tears, he laid it in her palm. Wendy grasped his hand and cautiously picked him up, balancing the small child on her hip.

He couldn't be more than six years old.

Wendy tiptoed her back back through the house to the front door, where after a quick glance, she had to frown, because the boy had been left with no shoes whatsoever.

She opened the door with one hand, and warm sunlight streamed into the dim house. The boy let out a pained whimper, and turned to bury his face into Wendy's neck, drawing his arms up close to his chest.

Wendy shushed him and murmured soothing words to him as she stepped outside and turned to close the door behind her. A blue car was parked out in front, and standing next to it, was another woman with brown hair twisted up into a bun.

She was tall and slim, dressed in a silvery blue turtleneck with no sleeves, black dress pants and flats. Her green eyes flickered up from the street's dull scenery to her partner, who'd just emerged from the house.

Wendy carefully walked down the driveway towards the car, her eyebrows drawn together in worry and disgust while one arm circled the boy, and her other hand cradled his head.

"Oh my God, what happened?" the other woman asked. Wendy shook her head, not sure if words could explain just what she'd seen. "You have no idea what it's like in there, Kate." She looked at the boy in her arms.

"I'm not sure how he managed to survive in that house."

He would've had to find food, which was most likely half rotten if the smell in there meant anything. He would've had to keep himself occupied, though Wendy had seen for herself first-hand what the boy did for 'fun'.

Kate quickly turned and opened the door to the back seat for Wendy, who flashed her a brief smile to show her thanks, and climbed inside. Kate shut the door quietly and went around to the driver's side, where she hopped in and started the engine.

"Do you think we should take him to a hospital?" she asked, glancing in the rearview to Wendy, who met her gaze. The redhead pursed her lips in thought."No," she said slowly, her eyes now raking over the small boy's frame.

"He doesn't seem sick or anything potentially serious. Just in need of a bath and a warm meal." She looked back at Kate, who was turning the car around to pull onto another road. "Taking him to the group home should be fine."

Kate nodded. "I'm glad we got the call for this one. Who knows what could have happened if he'd been there longer?" Wendy shifted in the seat, pretty sure she didn't want to think about that.

The boy had disengaged from her, and was kneeling on the seat next to her and looking out the window at the sky.

His awed expression was reflected in the window, and Wendy wasn't sure if she wanted to smile or cry. Such an expression could only mean that he hadn't been outside in a long time.

When they reached the group home, the boy's attention immediately turned to the house. It was white and pristine, with forest green shutters and flower pots positioned on the railing on the front porch.

It was nice and inviting, especially with the sun shining overhead. Kate clambered out first, tucking the keys into her pocket. Wendy opened the door, and the boy slipped out and landed on his feet.

He wobbled unsteadily. Wendy took his hand to steady him as she stepped out, nudging the car door closed with her foot. She smiled once again. "This is where you'll be staying for awhile." The boy looked up at her, not saying a word.

She sighed quietly and gave him a reassuring smile as she led him inside. The front foyer was clean, with spring green benches to sit on and light brown hardwood floors that stretched down the hall to the kitchen.

To the right were carpeted stairs that went upstairs to the numerous bedrooms, and to the left was the living room. It was big, and carpeted also, with a television and a small couch on opposite sides of room. The middle of the room held a rug over the carpet, probably to keep it clean.

It was huge, covered in numerous shapes and colors. Blue circles, red squares, yellow triangles, ect. It was bright, and seemed to nearly glow.

Bins of toys were on each side of the room as well, most filled to the brim. The center of the room remained clear and brightly lit, a suitable place for children to play. For there were children.

About six in total, with four boys grouped together on the couch like some kind of kiddie gang, and one of the remaining two was on the other, curled around a book.

The other was sitting on the corner of the rug, glowering and looking like he would slug anyone who came near him. When the children caught sight of Wendy, Kate, and the new boy, they stopped playing. Every one of them stared at the dirt covered boy, who just blinked at them owlishly.

Wendy smiled at them for a moment, before leading the amazed boy away from what seemed to him like a magical room and into the bathroom. None of them noticed the scowling boy watching them curiously.

Wendy picked the boy up to set him on the counter. Kate rested her hand on the doorknob, ready to pull it shut. "I'll go get a change of clothes for him," she said, and Wendy grinned.

"Thanks, Kate. Can you also grab a bottle of shampoo? I want to see if I can wash his hair." Kate nodded and left, the door closing with a click. Wendy turned to the boy in front of her.

She eyed the small bathtub that just barely fit in there along with them. "Hey, are you able to take a bath?" The boy just stared at her, like he'd done ever since she'd pulled him from the house.

Wendy wasn't about to try and do anything as reckless forcing him into the tub, so when Kate arrived with shampoo and a pile of clothes, she had him undress and washed him down.

It wasn't the first time, so she at least had an idea as to what she was doing. She used a washcloth and did it as gently as she could so she didn't startle him. In her opinion, the boy didn't really seem to care, he preferred to look at different items hanging on the walls on sitting up on shelves.

Only when she started washing his hair did he pay attention. Wendy paused, her fingers buried in his hair. The boy gingerly reached up and collected a few bubbles on his hands, content to watch them pop one by one while Wendy finished.

She dressed him in a red shirt and blue shorts. Wendy found a pair of white socks under the bundle and she slipped those onto his feet. "There," she told him, "Now you're all clean."

Wendy opened the door and Kate looked impressed at the drastic change. The boy's skin was actually naturally tan and his hair was soft and fluffy, though still just as out of control as before.

"Nice job, Wendy," Kate praised. Wendy took the boy's hand again. "Thanks. I'm going to let him play with the other kids while I call the office to try and see what we'll do with him." Kate nodded.

Wendy led back to the living room, and the children once again turned their heads. "Kids," Wendy said to them, "This is someone new. He'll be playing with you today, so I expect you to treat him nicely."

The lone girl on the couch looked up. She had blonde hair that was put up into two pigtails by green ribbons, brown eyes, and she wore a purple sweater with brown pants and socks. "Is he gonna live with us?" she asked, revealing a lisp.

Wendy glanced at her. "I don't know yet, Bryony. We'll just have to wait and see." Bryony seemed satisfied with the answer, because she ducked her head to start reading again, her fingers grasping the book tightly as if it would simply fly away if she let go.

After Wendy left, it was quiet in the living room. The boy just stood there, blinking at them. The tallest of the four boys on the couch opposite Bryony, possibly the groups leader, stood up and scowled at him.

He had a pudgy face and thin brown hair, his ears sticking out a little awkwardly from his head. Beady little black eyes narrowed at the newcomer. He had thick limbs and thick hands.

"What's your name?"

The boy didn't say anything, and again, everyone was unaware of the other boy watching them. "He's Deagan," another boy said with a thick foreign accent, jabbing a thumb at his fearless leader. The second boy was shorter than Deagan, with rough dirty blond hair and bright blue eyes like Wendy's. Light brown freckles dotted the tip of his nose.

"I'm Simon," he told the new boy, though it ended up sounding like _See-moan._ A third boy climbed off the couch. He had cropped black hair and eyes, with dark bronze skin and a dimple on his right cheek. "I'm Jose!" he said, grinning broadly.

The fourth followed suit, standing with the rest and clearly shorter with chestnut hair that curled around his ears and hazel eyes. He had slanted shoulders and large feet. "Arthur," was all he said.

"What's your name?" Deagan asked again, his hands balling into fists. The boy looked up at him nervously, as if unsure of what the older boy wanted to do. Deagn reached out to grab the him. Suddenly, another boy entered the scene.

"Knock it off!" he snapped. Deagan huffed and stomped back to the couch with his minions on his heels.

The boy looked at his savior. He was older, around Deagan's age, with thick, messy black hair and freckles. He looked strong. And mad. The boy watched him for a moment, head cocked to the side.

The freckled boy suddenly grabbed his hand and marched over to the other end of room where the carpet ended, practically dragging the small boy behind him. He sat down, and his follower sat down with him.

He looked the younger boy over. "I'm...Ace."

They sat in silence for awhile, Deagan's group playing war and Bryony cooped up with her books. The boy didn't mind, he was content to sit there and observe with the new boy.

With Ace.


	2. Chapter 2

**I am so mad! My computer shut down, and when I came back, half of my chapter was gone! I just want to curl up into a ball and cry...**

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It had been several days since Wendy had brought the boy to the group home, and he still hadn't responded to anything she'd said or done. She didn't even know his name yet. She didn't understand how such a cute little boy could have been left to fend for himself in that place.

Any attempts of finding out who lived there from bills or neighbors hadn't gone anywhere, so Wendy was forced to try and figure out a name for him. It really bothered her that he wasn't talking, because that was certainly not healthy.

She looked over from the kitchen table to the living room, where said boy was sitting by Ace and alternating his gaze between the multi-colored carpet and his friend. Wendy did have to wonder how, out of all the other, he'd chosen Ace.

Ace was pretty anti-social and didn't like to participate in much of anything in favor of sitting by himself and hating the world. She remembered the day Kate brought him in, scowling; Just like he was now.

"You don't have to keep sitting by me," Ace grumbled in irritation, and the boy next to him raised his head to look at him with those big eyes. Ace narrowed his eyes at him, leaning forward an inch or two.

"Why don't you say anything?" he asked suddenly, without any anger this time. The boy's forehead creased slightly, but other than that, he didn't get anything. Ace sighed, turning his head to look around the room again, though he already knew there wasn't going to be anything to see.

The boy looked down at the carpet, gently trailing his finger on it's soft bristles. When it created a line if darker color, he blinked. His other hand rubbed it away so he could start over.

His eyebrows drew together on concentration, and he bit his bottom lip. One by one, he drew the shapes. Ace glanced over for a moment before looking away. Then he froze, and did a double take, twisting to see what the boy was doing.

Written in the carpet, in possibly the worst handwriting Ace had ever seen, was a name.

Luffy.

He looked at the boy. "Luffy...is that your name?" The boy swallowed and nodded once. Ace didn't jump for joy or scream for Wendy, though she probably would have preferred it if he did.

Ace simply nodding in approval, a faint smile gracing his features for the first time in a while; Not that anyone else saw but the raven beside him. Luffy looked up at him, tracing the smile with his eyes.

Then he smiled back with a full face grin that Ace was sure was brighter than the sun itself.

Wendy came in twelve minutes later to call them to lunch. Deagan and his pack raced ahead first. Bryony slid off of the couch and padded into the kitchen, her book tucked under one arm.

Luffy and Ace were the last ones to leave, with Ace leading the way and Luffy following like a puppy. Kate found their new friendship rather adorable. She directed the children to bring their bowls to stove so she scoop the soup into it from there.

When she got them settled, she came over to the living room, where Wendy had moved her paperwork so the kids could eat. "Any progress?" Kate asked, sitting down next to her.

Wendy sighed, rubbing her temples. "No. Nothing." She looked to the kitchen, where Jose was cheering about something. Luffy, though she didn't know his name yet, was looking over with slight interest, but a quick look at Ace's frown had him turning away from the boys.

"I can't find anything on him, and I don't know what to do. I can't turn in an empty form to the office, you know. There's no way there's _nothing_." Kate glanced at the boys as well, her teeth nibbling at the inside of the corner of her mouth.

"I think what little we'll be able to find is in that boy," she said, and Wendy nodded in agreement.

"We don't even know his name," Wendy replied.

Kate exhaled, bringing her knees up onto the couch cushion and tucking her feet under her. "What are we going to call him?" she asked, and Wendy shrugged. A clipboard lay on her lay and her hand was poised over it, ready to write.

The only area filled out was the place the boy was found and his appearance.

In the kitchen, Ace got down from him chair. Luffy was ready to follow him, but Ace shook his head. "I'll be back in a second." Luffy's eyes widened, and he froze. He didn't move, as still as a stone statue.

Ace wandered in the living room. "His name is Luffy," he said, hands on his hips and frowning at the two women on the couch. Wendy's eyes widened, and her brain tried to catch up for a moment, replaying what Ace just said a few times in her head.

Kate and Wendy exchanged glances.

"How do you know that?" Wendy asked quickly, setting the clipboard aside. "Did he tell you?" Ace shook his head. He turned his head and tried to find the place where Luffy had written it down.

Most of it was rubbed away already, but Kate knelt down to peer at it anyway. Ace turned on his heel to go back, and Wendy asked, "Has he mentioned anything else?" The freckled boy shook his head.

"No."

Wendy took in a breath. This was a huge step forward, and she knew she would have to be on top of it at all times. "If he does, make you sure you tell either me or Kate, alright?"

Ace waved it away. "Yeah. Okay," he agreed, stalking back to the kitchen with his hands buried in his pockets. When Luffy saw him coming back, he suddenly scrambled out of his chair, causing the table to screech on the hardwood floor as it was pushed back.

He ran forward to Ace, who's just stepped back into the kitchen, and hugged him for all he was worth. Ace looked down in alarm, and his expression became confused. Wendy, hearing the clatter, entered as well.

She spotted Luffy hugging Ace with his arms wrapped around his midsection and squeezing tightly with his face buried in the front of Ace's shirt. Wendy thought it was absolutely adorable.

Then Luffy pulled away, and both Ace and Wendy could see he was crying, though unlike most children, he was silent. Wendy quickly came to kneel next to the two of them. "Hey," she said softly, as not to startle anyone. "What's going on?"

"I don't know," Ace told her, "I just walked back."

"Ah."

Wendy knew what was going on. It was natural and expected for Luffy to have abandonment issues, even this early in life, especially with the condition he was found in. Ace, however, didn't know where Luffy came from.

He himself had come from a chaotic house where there was only screaming and hate thrown at each other, and his only refuge was his room, where he practically lived, locked inside for days on end.

It was toxic for a child. Further investigation into Ace's mother and father had shown that his mother was buyer and user of illegal drugs, and his father was not only an alcoholic and abusive, but he scammed people for money as well.

Ace was soon after delivered into the care of Wendy and Kate.

Luffy scrubbed the tears away with his sleeve, but more took their place, rolling down his cheeks. Ace went to the end of the kitchen table to fetch a tissue for him, and he gently wiped the tears away.

Wendy was touched at the sight. She stood up, skirting around the pair to check on the other children.

Deagan had taken Bryony's book again to taunt her with it, and she was screaming for him to give it back, her little hands balled into hands and her face a bright red that would put a tomato to shame.

"You're fine." Ace patted Luffy on the back begrudgingly, and Luffy nodded, looking down at the floor. The freckled boy sighed. "I'm not going to just walk out and leave you, you know." Luffy's head shot up, eyes wide.

He looked up at Ace, who could easily read the question held within his eyes. _Do you mean it?_

"Yeah."

Luffy smiled for the second time that day. If it was possible, Ace thought it was brighter than the first, and he couldn't help but smile back at him.

Wendy frowned at the boys tormenting Bryony. "Deagan, we talked about this," she said sternly, "You're to leave Bryony alone." Deagan's face turned a light shade of pink and he began arguing with her.

Ace plugged his ears to block them out, prompting Luffy to do the same.

The boy stood there with his fingers in his ears and a frown on his face, and he glanced at Luffy, who hand his hands cupped over his ears and a small smile on his face.

Ace had a feeling he was really going to like this kid.

It took time and a lot of coaxing before Bryony had her book back in her hands, and by that time Ace had already retreated upstairs with Luffy on his tail. At the top of the stairs, the top floor divides into two hallways, one on the right and one on the left.

The right hallway belonged to Wendy, Kate, and Bryony, and held all three of their rooms, along with a bathroom. The left held the boys' rooms, the last door on the left being Ace's room.

Luffy had been staying in Ace's room for the time being, since Deagan already had Arthur, and Simon and Jose were in the other room. Ace's room was red, with two beds on either side of the room.

Ace ducked into his room, closing the door when Luffy followed him inside. He sat down on the bed to the right, his, and sighed. "They can get really annoying sometimes," he told Luffy, who blinked at him before climbing up on his bed too and curling up beside him.

At first, he'd only let Luffy sit next to him because he was new and already Deagan was picking on him. A while later, he'd tried scaring the kid off, but Luffy was already stuck to him like a leech with no intent of letting go.

But something about Luffy's big brown eyes and his bright, warm smile made him grow on you. He knew the scar under Luffy's left eye unnerved Jose, but it never bothered him.

The not-talking situation didn't really bother Ace either. Whether Luffy wanted to talk or not was his choice, and Ace didn't have problem with either outcome. He could read the boy easily enough.

Ace also knew that even though Luffy's silence didn't faze him, it made Wendy and Kate worry, which meant Luffy would end up saddled by a therapist soon if the small boy didn't start talking. He told him as much.

"I don't mind you not talking, but Wendy does. She make you go to a therapist if you don't start telling her things. I can't go with you to therapy," he pointed out.

Luffy didn't say anything, nor did Ace expect him to. Ace laid back on the dark blue comforter on his bed, waiting for Luffy to move and resettle against him. The silence in the room was nice and peaceful, unlike the usual banter downstairs.

"Ace."

Ace's eyes widened, and his stomach plummeted. He turned his head and looked down at Luffy's head of dark hair.

"What did you say?" he croaked.

Luffy shifted, twisting so he could lay on his stomach ad look at him. He paused, as if in thought, and took a breath before saying it again.

"Ace."


	3. Chapter 3

Ace stared at him. He could barely believe what he'd just heard. Luffy had spoken, _truly_ spoken.

"So you _can_ talk," Ace marveled, and Luffy smiled at him. Ace's eyes narrowed at the smaller boy, and he sat up so Luffy had to flip onto his back again to keep his eyes on him without craning his neck.

Ace licked his lips. "Why don't you?" Luffy blinked a few times, his face scrunched in thought. Ace chuckled. "Don't hurt yourself, kid," he muttered to himself under his breath.

"I'm not supposed to," a tiny voice whispered.

Ace looked down at Luffy, who suddenly wasn't looking at him anymore. He was twisting the hem of his shirt and stretching the fabric. "Who told you that?" Ace asked lightheartedly, when internally, he was reeling.

Not supposed to? What did that mean? Luffy shrugged, still refusing to look at him. "I don't remember." His voice was still so soft, like a gentle summer breeze. He probably couldn't talk any louder since he wasn't used to speaking.

"That's okay," Ace told him, though he knew it probably wasn't. He had half a mind to cart Luffy off to Wendy so she would stop stalking him, but that either have the desired effect, or Luffy would go mute again, and Ace didn't want to risk that.

He bent over Luffy so he could see the younger boy's face. "So, you gonna talk to other people now?" Luffy cast his eyes down and shook his head. Ace frowned. "No? Why not?"

Luffy murmured something, and Ace had to bend closer to hear it, which was not comfortable in any way, but he pushed that aside. "Hmm?" he asked. Luffy whispered it again.

"I don't wanna to talk to anyone else. Just you."

That made Ace feel rather special. He sighed, and laid back again, his right arm curling around Luffy, who happily snuggled against his side. "That's okay too. You can talk to whoever you want."

Deagan, however, hadn't finished with his interrogation. He spied the two sitting together on the stairs, Ace pointing out pictures in one of the books Bryony lent him.

The pudgy boy didn't like Ace, mainly because if he punched him, he punched right back. He knew that where Ace went, Luffy followed, and vice versa. He didn't like the new kid, he was too much of a wimp in his opinion.

And he didn't say _anything_, which pissed him off. Jose and Simon let Deagan push them around sometimes, but Arthur didn't stand for it, like Ace. The only other person he had to pick on was Bryony, and she cried to Wendy at the drop of a hat.

Luffy was not only a wimp and really annoying, but he didn't talk, which meant he couldn't tattle.

"Boys!" Wendy called from the screen door at the back of the kitchen, "Come outside! It's nice!" Jose cheered, but then again he cheered at nearly everything. Simon smiled and started pulling on Arthur's arm, who stood up and let himself be dragged into the kitchen.

"Wait for me," Deagan yelled, charging after them. He'd get the wimp, sooner or later.

Ace heard the call and he smiled at Luffy, who, though he didn't quite get what was going on, smiled back. "We're going outside," he told Luffy, leading downstairs and down the hall.

Luffy looked confused. "What do you do there?" he asked in his breathy voice.

Ace grinned. "You play. It's fun; you'll see." Outside, the sun was bright and warm, making the grass glow a vibrant green. Little yellow buttercups were just beginning to blossom near the willow tree.

They were outside for hours, playing in the dirt beneath the big, blue sky. Ace encouraged Luffy to go explore on his own with the reassurance that Ace would always be there if he need him.

Luffy wasn't too fond of the idea of leaving Ace's side, but eventually the surrounding nature began to chip away at his resolve. Fluttering butterflies and drifting flower petals were simply too inviting, drawing Luffy's curiosity from Ace.

He reached up to touch a leaf that was swirling in the air. A gust of wind brought it just out of his reach, and he walked towards it. When it floated away into the distance on the wind he turned and his eyes widened at how far he was from Ace.

Luffy could still see, which reassured him, because if anything went wrong, Ace would be there to protect him. Suddenly, a firm hand grabbed his shoulder, and then he couldn't see Ace anymore.

He was face to face with Deagan, and behind him was Arthur and Jose; Simon too. The other three didn't look excited to be there, unlike Deagan. "Come on," Deagan growled, grabbing Luffy's arm and dragging back towards the house.

Farther from Ace. Luffy wanted to go back to Ace; he didn't like Deagan. He was brought to the side of the house, where Deagan cornered him. And like a frightened animal, Luffy backed away.

Deagan stepped forward, his hands curling into fists. Luffy's eyes were as big as dinner plates, full of fear. Where was Ace? He couldn't see Ace. He wanted Ace.

"You're such a wimp," Deagan raged. He swung, and Luffy drew back, his eyes widening further when his back hit the side of the house. The punch caught him in the stomach and he doubled over with a strained whimper, face red.

His eyes watered.

And just like Deagan thought he would, Luffy didn't say a word. "Deagan," Simon began, but Deagan cut him off.

"Shut up." Simon was quickly going pale, and he looked at Jose in slight panic, who took a stiff step towards him. "Deagan," Jose started, but Deagan quickly cut him off too.

"Shut up!" Jose, using both hands, grabbed Deagan and turned him to he was looking in the direction Simon was pointing in with a shaking finger. "Look!" Jose yelled. Deagan frowned for a moment, and then his eyes grew wide with fear.

He backpedaled, pushing Jose out of the way so he could run. "Go!" he shouted, and the three boys tripped over each other in their haste to get away. Luffy sniffled, using his sleeves to dry his eyes. His stomach really, really hurt and he wanted Ace.

Curiosity however, made him turn his head just a fraction, and what he saw made his heart skip a beat. His legs turned to jelly. Luffy couldn't move. Paralyzed with fear, he began to tremble.

It came closer, brown eyes slitted. Luffy didn't move a muscle, and in his terror, he did the only thing he could think of to do.

"ACE!"

Ace glanced up from where he knelt next to the goldfish pond. He frowned, and slowly stood up to his full height. "Luffy?" he asked aloud, but he received no answer. He walked back a few feet, towards the house.

Suddenly, a body slammed into him, knocking both of them to the ground. Ace groaned, and he blinked a few times to clear the ringing in his ears. When he sat up to see who hit, he saw it was Deagan.

"What are you doing?" Ace snapped. "Why are you running?" Deagan opened his mouth, but no sound came out, so he sat opening and closing it like a fish out of water. His three friends came running not a minute later, and they slowed to a stop, panting.

Ace got to his feet, brushing off his clothes. "What's going on?" he asked them.

Jose was the first to catch him breath, bent over with with his hands on his knees for support. "T-There's...a rattlesnake," he wheezed. "Next to the house." Simon looked sick, his face a shade of light green.

Ace's eyes widened. "Where's Luffy?" The question fell from his lips before he even realized it. Deagan pointed to the left side of the white house, where'd they'd just come from. Ace immediately turned lethal, turning his furious gaze on Deagan.

"And you just left him there?!"

Deagan didn't have a chance to answer, because Ace was already running past them. "ACE!" Luffy shrieked again. Ace skidded to a stop as he rounded the corner of the house.

Luffy was pressed against the wall, hands pressed to his face and his eyes big and wet with tears and completely transfixed on the brown snake curled at his feet. It's rattle was snaking, sounding just like a baby's.

"Luffy, don't panic. I'm here; everything's going to be okay," Ace said hoarsely, lungs burning and adrenaline burning through his veins. Luffy seemed to be shocked out of his stupor, and he glanced at Ace.

"A-Ace," he sobbed, and Ace flashed him a soft smile. "It's going to be okay," he said again, and Luffy hiccuped. Ace took what little time he had before the snake decided to move looking for a stick.

He spied one, and slowly moved towards it, leaves crunching under his boots. As Ace hesitantly crouched down to grab hold of it, the rattling grew louder, and Luffy inhaled sharply.

Ace thought he would have a heart attack in a second if he didn't hurry things up. Stick in hand, he began crawling towards Luffy and the snake. As quick as he could, Ace dove forward, pushing the stick under the snake's body and pulling it away from Luffy.

It happened within seconds, and then the snake was moving, slithering towards them. Ace darted to Luffy's side, pulling him close for a split second before pushing him behind him so Ace could keep batting the rattlesnake away.

Ace caught wind of voices, and he prayed to whatever higher power there was that it was either Wendy or Kate. It was the boys again, but they'd brought Wendy with them.

"Oh my God," she cried. Wendy slowly walked forward and motioned for Ace to pass the stick to her. He did, and she ended using the same move Ace did earlier, but she tossed it a few feet away.

"Get inside the house!" she ordered, ushering Ace and Luffy towards the other boys. Everyone went inside the house and stayed there. When they were inside and Wendy had shut the back door, she turned to Ace and Luffy.

"Are you two alright?" Ace nodded, and Luffy, who's practically glued himself to Ace's arm, nodded as well. "Okay," she sighed. "Why don't you all go into the living room for now and play. I'm going to call animal control."

The living room was quiet. Bryony didn't know what was going on to its full extent, so she just snatched a book from a toy bin and snuck away to a corner of the room to read. Ace took Luffy to the empty couch, glaring at Deagan the entire time.

Deagan was stubborn, and absolutely refused to back down and apologise. If looks could kill, however, he would be six feet under already. The silence was deafening, and the air was so tense you could cut it with a knife.

They listened to Wendy make her call, and when she was done, she came into the living room, frowning again. It was a rather unpleasant expression on her usually smiling face. Her arms were folded across her chest.

"So...Does anyone want to tell me what happened?"

No one said a word.


	4. Chapter 4

Deagan was confined to his room for a while, and so was Ace, seeing as he punched Deagan in the face, screaming, "You left him there!" Wendy separated the two, and even had to restrain Luffy.

He'd freaked when Wendy took Ace to their room, especially when Wendy told him he wasn't allowed to see Ace for a while. Luffy had started bawling, and he dashed up the stairs to try and get to Ace.

However, Wendy had gotten to him first, wrapping an arm around his midsection and carrying back downstairs. Luffy had kicked and screamed, clawing at her arm, and Wendy was taken aback, because this was the first time she'd ever heard him make _noise_, and now she wasn't sure if it was healthy to keep him from Ace.

In his room, Ace could hear his wailing reverberating off of the walls. He buried his face in his pillow, eyes squeezed shut as he tried to block out Luffy's cries. Ace briefly considered simply going downstairs, but Wendy would just cart him back.

Suddenly, Luffy stopped. Everything went quiet. Puzzled, and maybe a bit worried, Ace climbed off of his bed and crept to his door. He opened it a little to try and hear what was going on.

Another creak told him the boy in the room across the hall was doing the same thing.

Downstairs, Wendy had found Ace jacket in the closet and gave it to Luffy to hold on to until Ace's time out was done. Luffy had put in on the couch and burrowed under it like a ground squirrel.

Wendy could tell he still wasn't pleased, because it wasn't Ace, but he accepted it. Wendy went to go fetch Ace after about forty five minutes, and she brought him down.

Ace immediately went to Luffy, who burst out from underneath Ace's coat and tackled him in a giant hug, beginning to cry again. "You're such a crybaby," Ace told him, and Luffy scowled.

Wendy chuckled before instantly sobering. "I understand why you're angry with Deagan, Ace, but can you please try to get along?" Ace scowled, just like, but eventually nodded.

"Only if he stops being mean to Luffy," he said firmly, and Wendy smiled.

"Thank you. Now, I have a bit of an announcement to make." Everyone in the living room looked at her, waiting for the important news. She grinned widely. "Kate made a trip to the store, so today is going to be an arts and crafts day!"

Jose and Simon cheered, while Bryony smiled broadly. Ace grinned too, and quickly explained what that meant to Luffy, who stood there looking at everyone in confusion.

Luffy's eyes lit up, and he clapped his hands to show his excitement. Wendy directed them into the kitchen, where Kate was unpacking grocery bags. She laid packages of different colored pipe cleaners and several set of paint onto the counter, followed by a small packet of blue clay blocks.

Kate unveiled even more in the next bag, laughing at the awed expressions on the children's faces. Pulling out a massive can of glitter, Jose wriggled with excitement.

Wendy returned a few minutes later with Deagan, who was immediately welcomed back by his friends, who informed him about what they were doing. He pumped his fist into the air.

"Kate is going to keep the glitter and the pipe cleaners on the counter, okay? So when you need more, don't bring them back to them table." Wendy pulled out a tablecloth seemingly out of nowhere, which made Simon laugh.

She laid it over the table and pulled out a stack of paper plates from one of the kitchen cabinets. Jose grabbed one, holding it in front of his face like a prize. "I'm going to make a mask!" he said.

Wendy let the kids loose. Luffy dragged Ace over to the paint, and they got different colored dollops in small bowls Kate had gotten right out of the dishwasher. Ace led Luffy back to the table.

Luffy dipped his fingers in the paint and began 'drawing', splattering his green shirt with red. Ace set to work as well, though much more neatly. Jose worked on his mask, and Simon followed his lead.

Deagan tried to make some sort of box out of pipe cleaners, but even with Arthur's help, it didn't end up looking like much more than a multi-colored ball with wires sticking out in random places.

Jose held up his mask, the eyes holes cut out. "I'm a lion!" He'd colored the center yellow, and the outer ring brown for the mane. There were black stripes for whiskers, and he growled.

Simon held up his and peeked through his at Jose. "I'm the North Wind." His had blue paint in the center, and silver glitter was poured into it while wet, creating a glittering center.

He used glitter for the outer ring, too, except he'd put the glue on it in waves and poured the glitter over it. Jose frowned and put his mask down, a little envious at the talent he thought Simon had in art. "What's the North Wind?"

Simon put down his mask too, face up so it wouldn't stick to the table. "It's the cold wind from the north that blows in the winter," he replied. Jose scratched his head, eyebrows drawn together in thought.

"Is that from Iceland?" Simon nodded. He'd been born and raised in Iceland until he was six years old, and then his parents had him move with them to a new country, where they ended up dying only a few days later.

Luffy held up his picture for Ace to see. It was lots and lots of scribbles, most of them dotted with fingerprints in several different colors. Ace grinned broadly. "Is it a pirate ship?" Luffy nodded, and he held it out to Ace.

Ace raised in eyebrows in surprise. "It's for me?" Luffy nodded again, biting his bottom lip nervously. Ace carefully took it from Luffy's paint-stained fingers. He smiled, sure that his was going to break because he was so _happy._

"I love it. Thanks."

Luffy's eyes shone with delight and he threw his arms around Ace with a small giggle. Ace rolled his eyes, but his smile gave him away. Deagan stuck his tongue out at the display of affection, but kept working on his creation.

"How is not a box? We made the pipe things straight." Deagan put his hands on his hips, scowling at it. ARthur shrugged, and Deagan sighed. "This sucks. Hey, wanna throw this one out?"

Arthur blinked, peering at their monstrosity. "You gonna try making another one?" Deagan nodded.

The phone suddenly began to ring, and Wendy sighed as she went to answer it. She raised the phone to her ear. "Hello?" She listened for a moment. "Sure, what can I do for you?" Ace was trying to get Luffy to disengage from him, but the smaller boy wasn't having it.

"I can't take that many children. We don't have enough room." Bryony looked up from her book, watching Wendy curiously as she shifted from one foot to the other, nervously chewing on her thumbnail.

"Who?" she asked slowly. Bryony carefully put the book down on the carpet and walked over to Wendy, hugging her leg. Wendy glanced in surprise, then smiled fondly at her. "Ace?" Wendy gasped.

Ace and Luffy froze. They turned their heads to look at Wendy. She was looking back, but she seemed to become more and more worried by the minute. "I can't do that!" Wendy told the person on the other end of the line. "There's another boy here that's very attached to him. I can't separate the two."

Her eyes widened. "Both of them?" Wendy turned angry, her mouth turning down in a frown. "Who is this coming from?" She waited for her answer, and when she received it, she looked even less pleased.

"Fine," she growled. By that time, none of the children were playing. All of them were watching Wendy, some hesitant to ask what was going on. Others were too afraid.

Wendy hung up the phone. "Ace," she said softly, "I have been told that you and Luffy are going to another group home." Silence. Luffy obviously didn't understand anything but the word 'going'. He looked at up at Ace.

Ace didn't look mad, or even sad. "Oh," was all he said. He blinked once, then twice. "When?" he asked. Wendy exhaled in a small puff, reaching up to tighten her ponytail.

"Tomorrow."


	5. Chapter 5

**Hello! I've had huge problems focusing in school, which is making me fail. I got meds for it, which I'm on now, so I might be able to start dishing out several chapters a day!**

**I am SO motivated right now, which is shocking, because I usually never want to do anything! Please enjoy and please review if you want to :P**

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Luffy had cried. He was overjoyed that he got to stay with Ace, but when Wendy knelt down to hug him goodbye, he's starting crying his eyes out. Wendy had shushed him and told him it was fine, but the truth is, she was crying too.

Luffy had only been there for about a week, and already he had to go. A social worker from the other group home came to pick them up, parking on the street and climbing out of a large, red truck.

She was short, with dirty blonde hair that just barely brushed the tips of her shoulders, and dark blue eyes like the sea in a raging storm. She seemed to always be frowning. Her voice was low and scratchy, like an old record.

She wore a black t-shirt and cheap jeans with green sneakers and a red clutch.

The woman introduced herself as Mary, and told them that she'd be taking care of them from now on until they were accepted into a foster home.

Luffy had no idea what that meant, and Ace didn't look like he felt like explaining it to him, so Luffy just shrugged it off and climbed into the backseat with Ace. It was his second time inside a car, that he could remember anyway.

"Kid. Put your seatbelt on," Mary said as she sat down in the drivers seat. Luffy blinked once, then twice. He looked over at Ace, who reached over and buckled it for him. Luffy frowned and tugged at it.

It felt too constricting.

Ace gently hit his hand. "Don't mess with it." Luffy slouched in his seat. Now he couldn't reach Ace, and he didn't like it. Outside, the scenery streamed by in whirls of color, and he stared at out the window.

It took hours to get there, and Mary had to stop at a gas station once or twice. By the time they got there, Luffy was nearly thrashing in his seat, impatient to get up and _move_.

The house they arrived at was huge, bigger than the one they had come from, but it looked pretty run down. One of the shingles was missing from the left second story window, and all the paint was chipping away, turned yellow with age.

A few roof shingles were on the ground, a sign that they'd fallen off and no one had bothered to pick them up.

Ace looked at it in slight distaste, and Luffy climbed down after him, putting his smaller hand in Ace's while he eyes the big house curiously. Mary beckoned them forward. "Come on."

Ace went first, holding on to Luffy's hand tightly. Mary unlocked the front door and went in, not bothering to hold it open for them. Inside, it was hot and stuffy, and there wasn't a piece of furniture in sight.

There weren't any children in sight either, though you could hear most of them upstairs through the wood floors. Mary dug through her pockets and pulled out a pack of cigarettes before lighting one up.

"Sleep where you want, and don't waste food or break anything. You got it?" Ace and Luffy nodded. Mary walked off, vanishing into a room off to the right and locking the door behind her.

The inside of the house looked almost the same as the outside, except the chipping paint wasn't stained with rust or anything like that. There was, however, a large message written on the floor in red spray paint.

Ace read it through once and raised an eyebrow. Thank goodness Luffy couldn't read that well yet. "Who're you?" a voice asked, soft and quiet. It was a girl, with her hair cut short like a boys'.

She had brown eyes and a caramel birthmark under her right eye. Luffy blinked owlishly. "Luffy," he breathed. Ace glanced at him, eyes wide. Luffy had just _talked _to this girl, of his own free will.

"I'm Marie. Who're you?" she asked Ace. Ace told her his name and she nodded. "Sorry," she said suddenly, wringing her hands and grinding the tip of her shoe into the floor.

"Why are you sorry?" Ace was confused, and he didn't like this place. Wendy had told him once about how there were certain rules about how messy a place could be in order for the kids to stay there, and he was pretty sure Mary wasn't following those rules.

Marie shrugged. "It's not nice here, and you seem nice, so..." she trailed off, the tips of her ears turning pink as she ran out of things to say. "Bye," she squeaked, before dashing upstairs.

There was a crash from the room above them, followed by groans and shouts of protests. Ace swallowed nervously and began to explore. The stairs case was in the center of the house, and all the rooms went around it.

To the left was what used to be a dining room, and past that was the kitchen. It was dirty and it was fairly obvious that it hadn't been used in quite a while. To the right was the only room with a door, which was Mary's, and a big, empty room.

Sleeping bags were tossed in corners and chip bags littered the central area, as well as several different kinds of scorch marks. The room was devoid of kids, just like all the others, which meant all of them were upstairs.

Ace wasn't find of the idea of going upstairs just yet, but he wanted to get a glimpse of everything before deciding where the safest location was for he and Luffy to stay.

He didn't want to leave Luffy downstairs by himself, and Luffy probably wouldn't let him, but he didn't know what the kids here were like, so he had no idea how they would react to new members.

Ace figured that best thing to do _would _be to leave Luffy in the dining room, but Luffy full out refused, clutching to Ace's pant leg and whining pitifully. "I wanna stay with you!"

Trying to get Luffy to let go was like trying to unstick superglue. It was impossible. Ace sighed. "Fine. But you have to stay right next to me, okay? Don't go wandering off."

Luffy nodded his agreement, and took Ace's hand again as they went upstairs.

The wood creaked and groaned under their feet, and Ace was briefly worried that it would give way. His attention was diverted a few seconds later by the residents of the house.

There were kids _everywhere_. On the railings of the stairs, by the railings, tumbling around on the floor, in the rooms, running around. Everywhere. Some were playing cards, and others were just sitting there and glaring at anyone who passed.

A few were smoking something, and Ace simply wrinkled his nose and walked past. Nearly all the kids were dirty, covered in dirt and ripped clothes, similar to how Luffy looked when Ace saw him brought in for the first time.

Not many of them cared that they were there. Some merely glanced in their direction, while others didn't even acknowledge their existence. Ace kept Luffy close to his side, looking around warily.

He didn't like this. Not only was it unsafe, but some of the children looked downright lethal. Several of them were teenagers, a few sporting tattoos and cigarettes.

There were plenty of rooms upstairs, and by the looks of them, lots of the children slept there. In one room, four teenagers were sitting on the floor, their eyes glazed over with what could only be drugs, and a few needles lay on the floor next to a small vial of yellowish liquid.

Ace knew heroin when he saw it, and he backed out of that room so fast, he nearly tripped over Luffy. The smaller boy tried to look past him to see what was inside, but Ace turned him around.

Suddenly, one boy started shouting at another, and the other responded by punching him in the jaw, sending him flying. A nearby girl rolled out of the line of fire, and other kids began chanting, "Fight! Fight! Fight!"

"Let's go back downstairs, okay?" Ace murmured in Luffy's ear, and Luffy nodded, backing away from the fight. Ace could tell that Luffy was becoming frightened, and he bent down to pick him up. Luffy wrapped his arms around Ace's neck and buried his face in the front of Ace's shirt.

He was pretty light, which was a bit worrying, and Ace quickly carried him downstairs. From what he could see, the place didn't have a phone. "No surprise," he muttered to himself.

If there was one, he was sure at least one of the children would have called someone to get them out of there. The more Ace thought about it, he realized that Mary could very well have one, but he wasn't about to ask her, and he had a feeling she wouldn't let them use it.

Luffy wasn't happy with their situation, and the lack of mental stimulation was making him fidgety. "Ace," he said suddenly, startling Ace out of his train of thought. "Do you wanna play?"

Ace blinked a few times. They were confined to a rotting house filled with criminals, and Luffy wanted to play. Not that Ace was overly shocked, Luffy didn't seem to find much of anything to be shocking.

"Sure. What do you want to play? Ace asked, sitting down on the floor with Luffy. It's not like he had anything better to do. Luffy thought about it, and after a minute he raised his feet and let them fall back onto the floor with a thump.

"I dunno." It was Ace's turn to think. There wasn't much they could do without drawing attention, and he still didn't know a lot about Luffy's likes of dislikes yet, seeing as they only met a week ago.

Since all they had was time at the moment, Ace figured he could remedy that. "Luffy, what's your full name?" Luffy cocked his head to the side, like he didn't understand. "Your whole name. Like, mine is Portgas D. Ace."

Luffy nodded. "Oh," he said quietly. His voice was coming back slowly, ever since he began talking to Ace more and more, but it still wasn't up to full use. When Luffy had yelled for Ace during the snake encounter, he'd lost his voice for several hours.

"I'm Monkey D. Luffy. Is that right?" Ace nodded, smiling. He sat there for a moment, trying to figure out another question. Ace glanced around the room for inspiration.

"What's your favorite color?" he asked finally. Luffy stuck his tongue out in displeasure. He clapped his hands together and he thought about it long and hard, which, from Ace's perspective, looked a little painful.

"I like lots of colors!" Luffy replied, and Ace very nearly rolled his eyes. "What about you?" Luffy prodded, leaning forward to poke Ace's arm.

Ace shrugged. "I like red." Luffy grinned broadly, and the room seemed to brighten instantly. "Then I like red too!" he declared, looking up at Ace with those big, brown eyes that just melted your heart. Ace smiled back, chest swelling with pride.

"Do you have any big brothers?" Ace questioned. Luffy had never said anything about before he came to the group home, except for that tiny whisper about him not being allowed to talk, which freaked Ace out more than he was willing to admit.

Luffy's face scrunched up, and it was rather cute, before he asked, "What's a brother?" Ace was dumbstruck. How could he explain that to a little kid?

"Uh," he started nervously, "A brother is a part of your family, and he loves you and takes care of you. You can talk to him about lots of stuff. He..um, he plays with you? You know, stuff like that."

Luffy smiled again, and this time he seemed to radiate happiness. Ace was a little puzzled, until Luffy said, "Yes! I have a big brother!" He said it so confidently, Ace had to wonder who this guy was. Another thought passed through his mind.

If Luffy had a big brother, where was he when Luffy was brought to the home?

"What's his name?" Ace asked gently, propping his head up with his hands while his elbows rested on his knees. He liked the sparkle Luffy held in his eyes, like he'd just figured out the world's greatest puzzle.

Luffy took a breath, still smiling, and said, "My big brother's name is Portgas D. Ace."


	6. Chapter 6

**Hey, everyone :) I'd just like to do a shout out to every one of my reviewers, who have made my days sparkle!**

**a84vpszy: You are awesome, seriously, I can't even-**

**natlaredo: Aw, thank you! The updates aren't a problem, only 'cause my life is fanfiction...(sad, I know)**

**Rhyme13kh14Xion8: Thanks :P I was going to make Sabo a part of this, but my heart told me otherwise. I'll make a fic with the three of them to calm my feels, but unfourtunately, this isn't the one.**

**MissJenca: Ah, you are one of those questioning reviewers who finds secret details :) I tip my hat to you, good lady. They are still together, which will hopefully make the next chapter easier.**

**Dark D Phoenix: No problem, and I hope you like it!**

**Alana33: Thank you! I try to do my best :P**

**ASLfangirl: Yes, Luffy's past is rather interesting, though it's still under construction...**

**Missy anon: I do pick on Luffy, don't I? I think we fans just have a secret gene in us that makes us constantly enjoy hurting our characters. And please don't cry! (though that is my goal) *hands you tissues***

**Black Night Wolf: My first reviewer! Sorry I didn't do this before, but thank you for reviewing! **

**I was a bit more preoccupied by the chapters than by responding to people. Sorry!**

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Ace felt his face begin to burn a bright red. Luffy just called him big brother. "Uh, um," he stammered, and Luffy just continued to smile in complete adoration. Ace didn't know what to say!

"I-I guess that makes you my little brother," he mumbled. Luffy gasped, and his eyes went wide, like he couldn't believe what Ace had just said. "Really?" he asked, and Ace nodded.

Luffy squealed and surged forward to give Ace another hug, knocking Ace onto the floor. Ace grunted in pain before giving up and smiling. Luffy seemed content to just lay there, and Ace let him.

After several minutes Ace sat up a little so he could see what Luffy was doing. Luffy was fast asleep, fist curled around part of Ace's shirt. Ace chuckled softly and laid back down. He fought it for a while, but eventually sleep claimed him too.

When he awoke, the first thing he noticed was a distinct absence of weight on his chest. A quick glance down confirmed it. Luffy wasn't with him. Ace looked around, and saw Luffy standing at the door frame, peeking around it to look at something.

Ace got to his feet and walked towards him, his shoes making hollow taps on the wood. Luffy hadn't moved a muscle, but Ace could see the slight tremble in his shoulders. "Luffy? What is it?"

Luffy was silent. Ace then realized the distinct sound of shouting and he rounded to corner to see what Luffy was looking at. There was a boy on the floor, maybe a few years older than Ace, and over him, was an older boy.

Children stood around the two, a few blocking some of Ace's view. He slowed to a stop behind Luffy and stood on tiptoe to see over the head of a girl in front of him. The older boy was panting, red faced and sweaty.

"There's nothing to see here. Scram!" he snapped, and the kids snapped out of their daze, scrambling to hide either downstairs or in the far room Ace had seen earlier.

On the ground, the younger boy wasn't moving.

Ace's eyes widened, and he picked up Luffy, one hand reaching up to cover his eyes, and the other looping around his waist. He took several steps back so the body was out of sight, but judging by the Luffy's shaking, he was too late.

Ace set Luffy down, and came around to kneel in front of him. "Hey," he murmured gently. "Hey, it's okay. Luffy?" he searched the younger boy's gaze. Luffy's eyes were blown wide with fear, and he still didn't budge.

"Luffy? I need you to talk to me, little brother. Okay? Luffy?" Luffy's petrified gaze slowly went down to meet Ace's. "H-He..." the little boy gasped, and Ace pulled him into a hug.

"It's okay," Ace said soothingly, "It's okay." Luffy's shaking grew less violent, but it still remained for quite a while. Ace could practically _feel_ Luffy's terror, and he himself felt sick.

What kind of place was this? Ace felt incredibly guilty, because if he'd just woken up a few minutes earlier, Luffy wouldn't have known. He wouldn't have had to.

Ace was also frightened. Children were killing each other, and he had nothing to protect Luffy with besides himself. Ace took in a breath to calm himself. Even if he didn't have a weapon or backup, he'd try his hardest to make sure Luffy was safe.

"What the hell happened?!" Mary screeched. The shriek was followed by a huge string of curses that made even Ace wince. "My god...what the hell do you think you're doing?!"

A voice answer, low and rough. "He isn't dead." At those words, Ace breathed out a sigh of relief. Mary, however, didn't seem to take any solace in them.

"Do you have any idea what would've happened if he was? God, I would've had to call the police." She took in a breath. "Take him upstairs, and someone keep those two apart."

Luffy inhaled deeply. "He isn't...?" he whispered, and Ace shook his head. Luffy sighed, and slumped against him. Ace rubbed circles on his back to calm him down, and as the minutes ticked by, he could tell it was working.

Mary went back inside her office and slammed the door shut, still grumbling to herself. Ace sat there with Luffy resting on him, and he knew he had to get Luffy out of there.

The next morning, they woke to the sound of yelling. Ace went to investigate, Luffy glued to his side. A horde of smaller kids were confronting a smaller group of teenager, looking to be about fifteen years old.

"Piss off," one of them angrily. A kid stomped her foot, and she curled her hands into fists, raising one of them threateningly. "Just give us some of it and we'll leave!" Another teenager spit at her feet.

"No way." A fourth leaned forward, smirking. "How can we put it so you can understand? Finders, keepers. Losers, weepers. 'Kay?" To the left, a boy flipped him off, and the teenager laughed.

Ace tapped on one of the shoulders of one of the children in the back. "What's going on?" he asked in a low voice. The girl looked him up and down with distaste. "Mary put out breakfast this morning, and they took all of it. There isn't enough for everyone without it."

Another teenager stepped forward from the group of younger children, dark eyes glittering menacingly. "Just hand it over. It's not worth it." The teens exchanged glances, inspecting the competition before nodding and shoving a huge bowl of apples in their direction.

The kids cheered, a few clapping their teenage savior on the back. Ace quickly ducked into the flow of children, snagging two apples and making his way back to Luffy. "Here," he said, passing both to the smaller boy.

Luffy blinked once, then twice. "Where's yours?" he asked, and Ace shrugged. "I'm not hungry," he replied. Luffy scowled, and held out an apple to Ace. "I'm not hungry," Ace repeated, but Luffy didn't withdraw his hand.

With a sigh, Ace accepted the fruit, and they made their way back downstairs. Luffy was getting antsy again, so he didn't want to go back into the dining room, but Ace managed to convince him with promises of a game.

"Game? What game?"

Ace had come up with pirates, an idea Luffy simply loved. Luffy didn't only make himself a captain; he'd declared himself the Pirate King. It turned out that the shy boy was actually quite robust and impulsive.

Ace was sure that if Luffy had grown up like a regular child, he'd have been a force to be reckoned with. After several hours of playing quietly, Luffy had tired himself out and fallen asleep in the corner of the room.

"Hey." Ace looked up from where he was sitting against the wall, next to Luffy. It was the teenager from that morning and the night before, the one who had come to the rescue of the other children, and hurt the other.

He had black hair and eyes, and he was dressed in a torn green shirt and tattered blue jeans with red sneakers. He looked Ace up and down. Ace stared right back at him.

"What do you want?" Ace asked in a low voice. He didn't want any trouble, or anything to do with trouble. The teenager could see it, and he slipped his hands into his front pockets.

"I'm here to ask for your help." Ace narrowed his eyes at the older kid, and he cautiously stood up. The older boy was much taller than Ace was, but he didn't care, he looked him straight in the eye and tried to seem as intimidating as possible.

"Why?" The teenager sighed, and seemed like he about to move into the room. Ace tensed, and the teenager paused and remained where he was. "I'm Lyle," he offered.

Ace blinked. "Ace," he said slowly. Lyle smiled politely, a vast difference from the angry expression before.

"I need you to sneak into Mary's office," Lyle said, pursing his lips and briefly glancing at Luffy's sleeping form. Ace crossed his arms and raised his head. "Why?" he asked again.

Lyle shot a quick look over his shoulder to see if anyone was nearby. "The fight from last night was part of a plan to get into Mary's office and call the cops so we can get outta this hell hole. It worked, like you saw; she came out of her office."

He sighed. "Unfourtunately, it wasn't enough time. The kid was nearly caught, and now he doesn't wanna do it, so I need somebody else." He looked at Ace. "You." Ace blinked a few times, letting his skepticism show.

"Really? Why me?" Ace questioned, raising an eyebrow.

Lyle narrowed his eyes at him. "You've only been here for about a day, and you've stayed under the radar of everyone here. Besides, there aren't many who'd be willing to do it."

Ace scoffed indignantly. "And what makes you think I will?" he countered. Lyle looked past him at Luffy and raised his eyebrows. "You don't him staying here, do you?"

Ace didn't answer, and Lyle grinned, though most of the emotion behind it was forced. "We'll do it in about a month. Should be enough time for Mary to forget about what happened yesterday."

He turned and was about to leave when Ace suddenly said, "I never said I'd do it." Lyle smirked, though no one could see it. "You didn't need to," he replied, vanishing into the hall.

Ace swallowed hard. What did he just get himself into?

Over the next few days, Ace caught Lyle watching him. Every time it would send shivers down his spine. Luffy could tell something was wrong, and tried even harder to gain all of Ace's attention, but it was fruitless.

It bugged Ace almost all of the time, on top of the hardships that came to living in such an awful house. Mary would put out bows of cheap fruit for breakfast, and for lunch you were on your own, scouring rooms for leftovers.

Dinner usually consisted to about a dozen bags of burgers from the cheapest place Mary could find. She didn't do much to care for them at all, choosing instead to isolate herself in her office with her cigarettes and the only phone.

The other children didn't show much compassion either. They fought over every little thing, from cards to how many spots were on the ceiling. Most arguments ended in fist fights, when usually ended in bloodshed.

Ace tried to keep Luffy away from it as much as possible, but as hard as he tried, he couldn't stop Luffy from seeing bones being broken, or hearing screams from when someone tried to steal heroin from another.

It was a vicious place, and Ace had to wonder how no one knew they were being kept inside and treated this way. Ace assumed that Mary did it for the money, money she would keep receiving if they didn't get moved to a foster home or adopted.

Ace could see that the murderous atmosphere was starting to get to Luffy. Luffy became even more irrational than usual, and he began to stay in the dining room at all times.

It was starting to under Ace's skin as well. Ace was on edge, ready to run or fight in nearly any circumstance.

Mary never let them leave, and the only sunlight they got was through dirtied windows. Ace considered breaking out and simply running away with Luffy, but Mary could easily call the authorities and have them brought back.

He couldn't simply attack her, because even though Ace was strong for his age, she was still much stronger. Ace considered just burning the building down, but there was no guarantee that Mary wouldn't simply leave them to burn.

It was only a matter of time before they all went crazy, and Ace knew he had to accept Lyle's offer, because it was truly the only way out of there.


	7. Chapter 7

**I'm so sorry! I didn't get this up yesterday because it wasn't finished because I went shopping with my family and got chased out of Kohls by a goose.**

**Anyways...please review if you enjoyed it, and I hope to have another chapter up soon! **

* * *

Ace didn't trust Lyle, not one bit. Sure, his idea was to the benefit of every child under their roof, but Ace had a feeling Lyle had an ulterior motive to get Mary busted. He wasn't positive, and had no definite proof, but it was simply a feeling he had.

Lyle never revealed anything that would make people suspect he had any other agenda, so Ace was left wondering if it was merely his imagination.

Time passed so slowly there. Minutes seemed like hours, and hours seemed like days. Waiting a month was like waiting for a lifetime. Luffy stopped wanting to play, and Ace stopped indulging him.

Lyle only briefly went over the plan, because it was incredibly simple. Ace was to slip into Mary's office while she was out, and call the police. Lyle informed him that the plan would be executed at noon, and Ace was so on edge, Luffy was getting incredibly concerned.

Ace sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. If he was caught, he didn't know what Mary would do. So far he hadn't seen her beat anyone or starve them, just a lot of yelling.

He also had to consider what would happen to Luffy if things went badly. It was a hard fact that Luffy couldn't really survive without him. He never defended himself, not from anything, and he was still so emotionally fragile, not that their current circumstances helped at all.

Ace opened his eyes, halfway expecting Luffy to be sitting in front of him and staring up at him with his big eyes. He wasn't. Ace did a quick survey of the room, and he felt his heart skip a beat.

Luffy wasn't there.

Ace cursed mentally. How was Luffy so quiet? He stood up and poked his head out of the room. "Luffy?" he called. There was no response. Panic coiled around his heart and _squeezed_.

Suddenly, he felt a familiar tug on the hem of his shirt. Ace looked down to see Luffy standing there, and he started. "Jeez, Luffy! You scared me," he scolded, and Luffy flashed him a small smile.

"Where have you been?" Ace asked tersely, and Luffy pursed his lips, but didn't say anything. Ace found that oddly puzzling, but before he could repeat his question, he caught sight of Lyle creeping downstairs.

"You ready?" Ace nodded, and Lyle shuffled towards them. "So, before we start, there's a favor I gotta ask you." Lyle didn't look nervous, per se, more apprehensive then anything, which set off alarms in Ace's mind.

Lyle said, "You know that I need to create a distraction, yeah? Well, I need to, erm, borrow your brother." Ace stared at him for a few seconds, digesting what Lyle had just said.

"Excuse me?" Ace asked in a low voice, and Lyle sighed. "Look, I'm not going to do anything to harm him in any way. All he has to do is make a distraction." Ace raised his lips in a silent snarl.

"No way! What if this goes wrong? I'm not dragging him down with us; he's not participating-" Ace raged, and Lyle cut in. "I've already talked to him about it, and he agreed."

Ace's eyes blazed with anger. "You _what_?" Luffy tugged on his pants again to draw Ace's attention. "I wanna do it," he whispered, and Ace gritted his teeth.

He looked back at Lyle. "If _anything_ happens to him, I'll kill you." Lyle, without missing a beat, met his gaze and replied, "I would expect no less." Not ten minutes later, Ace was crouched in the shadows barely five feet from Mary's door.

He sat back on his haunches with his hands resting on his knees, trying to breathe evenly and ignore his muscles screaming in protest to sitting there for minutes on end.

Ace had to wait, in silence, for Lyle and Luffy to draw Mary out.

Suddenly, he heard a bloodcurdling scream, so long and loud that he thought it might have shaken the very foundation of the house. Ace could feel his bones tremble. It was an anguished wail, full of longing and sorrow and Ace recognized it instantly.

Luffy.

Children upstairs began yelling in protest and confusion, and the louds thuds of footsteps told him people were coming to investigate. He waited, and sure enough, he heard the magical sound.

The creaking of a door, and it swung open. "What's going on out here?" Mary cried, striding out of the room and into the hall. She began peering into rooms, trying to find the screaming child.

Ace dove into her office, pulling the door partway shut. He turned on his heel and quickly took inventory of the room. On the right, tucked in the corner, was a bed. In the middle of the small room was an old desk, covered in soda cans and cigarette packages.

Mary had two dressers side by side on the left, also covered in trash. Notes and random scribbles were everywhere, on scraps of paper and less-dirty-than-other places on the furniture.

In the back were two windows that, judging by the looks of the hatches, opened outward. Which meant, if it came to it, Ace had an escape route. His dark eyes scanned the room for anything that could even resemble a phone.

His breath caught when nothing came up, and he took a few steps farther inside. Panic bubbled up from deep within his chest, and Ace could hear his own pulse pounding rhythmically in his ears.

Ace looked again, and once more found nothing. Then he saw it, a metallic object partially sticking out from under the covers of Mary's bed. He surged forward, stumbling and falling to his knees as his hand reached out to grab it.

His fingers fumbled on the buttons, and he clumsily raised the phone to his ear. "This is 911, how may I help you?" a woman asked as she came over the line.

Ace nearly sobbed with relief, and his eyes prickled with tears. "P-Please, you have to help us," he whispered, glancing over his shoulder to see if anyone was there. He could still hear Luffy screaming, but they were growing quieter, both worrying him and encouraging him to go on.

"How can I help you?" the woman repeated, remaining completely calm, and for a brief moment, Ace had the urge to scream at her.

"M-Mary has dozens of children locked up here, w-we don't have enough food. Please," he stammered, and he breathed in and out. He knew he had to calm down or the woman wouldn't be able to understand what he was trying to tell her.

The woman seemed taken aback, and she quickly asked, "Where are you? What's your name?"

Ace inhaled sharply. "M-My name is Ace. I don't know where we are, not exactly. It's a house, it's old, with two stories...uh, i-it's by itself on the street. Oh, it's white too. Please, you've got to help us. I don't know if we can survive. I can't- I don't know if I can do this," he gasped, face crumpling as hot, wet tears rolled down his cheeks.

"It's going to be alright. Please stay on the line, Ace. We trying to find you." Ace shook his head before he remembered that she couldn't see. "N-No, I can't do that. She'll be back any moment. I'm sorry, I have to go. Just- _please_. Get us out of here," he begged, his voice cracking on the last word.

He inhaled sharply and hung up at the sound of Luffy's screams tapering off into silence, a warning of how little time he had. Ace slipped the phone back into its' place and crept to the door, peering out to see if anyone was nearby.

Ace didn't see anyone, and he slipped out of the room and down the hall. He waited several minutes, until he heard the tell tale sound of Mary's shrieking, followed by the slam of the only door in the house.

He breathed in a sigh of relief, and he made his way back to the dining room. Luffy was sitting on the floor, looking a bit shaken, but otherwise unharmed.

When Lyle saw him, he was on his feet in a flash, an unspoken question in his eyes. Ace nodded, and a grin blossomed on Lyle's face. "We have ten minutes," he breathed, and Ace frowned.

"It takes ten minutes for police to respond to a call, and no matter what, we have to catch their attention when they come looking." Ace licked his lips, brows furrowing slightly.

"How are we going to do that?" Ace asked slowly, and Lyle shrugged, throwing his hands into the air. "I don't know! Scream, yell, bang on the windows; it's doesn't matter!"

Ace ran his fingers through his hair as adrenaline began to once again flow through his veins. "We, uh, we have to tell the other kids, they can help," he said, and Lyle nodded.

"Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Okay," he said hurriedly, "Stay here. I'll start telling people." He took in a breath. "If you see them, yell as loud as you can, okay?" Ace nodded, and Luffy quickly did the same.

Lyle dashed up the stairs, and Luffy looked up at Ace. "Are we leaving?" he asked in a small voice and Ace grinned although he was so amped up his entire body was trembling.

"Yeah. We're leaving."

Everything from that point forward seemed to both have passed in the blink of an eye, and gone in slow motion.

Ace felt like the universe was finally, _finally_ giving them some reprieve when he saw the beautiful lights of red and blue. He screamed and pounded on the windows so hard, he half expected them to shatter under his palms.

Children flocked to the windows, yelling as loud as they could and making as much noise as possible.

Mary had panicked, screaming and trying to force the kids away from the windows. Ace had grinned when the police finally broke the door, their eyes widening at the sight of the children.

The first officers inside arrested Mary immediately, the rest escorting the kids outside. Some broke down into tears when their feet touched grass for the first time in months.

Others simply looked dazed, as if they had never seen the outside world before. Children were pushed into ambulances, and Ace held Luffy's hand in an iron grip, wondering if it could possibly be the best day of his life.

An EMT came up to the two and asked if they needed help. Ace reassured the man that they were fine, and that he would find him if they needed anything. Apparently the guy had a million other things to do, because he accepted the answer and scurried off to another child.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ace spotted Lyle leaning against the side of an ambulance with his hands buried deep in his pockets, watching Mary get loaded into the back of a police car.

Ace weaved through the crowd with Luffy in tow, slowing only when he reached Lyle's side.

Mary was going to prison, that he knew. There were not only dozens of eyewitnesses, but plenty of material evidence to convict her. Lyle seemed happy, to a degree, yet sad at the same time.

"Why did you want her arrested so badly?" Ace asked softly, feeling Luffy press to his side for warmth in the cool air, and Ace instinctively wrapped an arm around the smaller boy's shoulders.

Lyle smiled grimly, and Ace thought he might have seen the sheen of unshed tears in his eyes, but it could've been his imagination.

"She's my mother."

Ace's eyes widened, and he turned to look at Lyle, though he had no idea what to say to such a statement. Lyle, however, was already walking away, his shoulders hunched and his head down.

The police car holding Mary pulled out of the driveway, and for a split second Lyle and Mary locked eyes.

Mary looked away first.


	8. Chapter 8

Mary was tried and incarcerated in prison for ten years under several charges of child abuse. Ace refused to testify in court, and of course, Luffy followed his lead. Lyle, on the other hand, willfully agreed.

He admitted that Mary was his mother and that she had treated him that same as the other children.

Ace and Luffy were shipped off to a temporary foster home. It was a light blue, two story house with a well-tended garden in front and a birdhouse on the corner of the porch.

It was run by a woman named Anne, who had dark red hair and brown eyes. She was tall and thin, with what seemed like a permanent scowl on her face. Anne wasn't pleased by their arrival, but she was much kinder than Mary was.

Anne ran a very busy business, which lead her to get only a few hours of sleep, and her day was mostly made up of bills, paperwork, and calling coworkers.

The first thing she did was send the two upstairs to bathe while she made some more phone calls. Ace was overjoyed to be able to shower again, and he made sure both he and Luffy were clean before creeping downstairs.

Without a second's hesitation, Anne hustled them into the car and took them to the nearest mall for clothes. Everything passed in a blur of polite greetings and disinterested glances.

Ace and Luffy didn't mind that neither Anne nor her husband showed much enthusiasm towards them. They had food and a comfy place to sleep, and they had each each other, which is all they needed.

Anne's son, Chris, was the only one who seemed to really like them. He was thirteen years old, with brown hair and eyes like his mother's. He talked with them now and again, sometimes even participating in Luffy's outrageous games.

Luffy turned six on May 5th, but the only one who knew was Ace. He snuck downstairs late at night the day before, gathering as much food as he could and putting it together in the shape of a cake, mostly because he had no idea how to make a real one.

They took a trip to the zoo together once, Luffy quivering with excitement as he pointed exotic plants and animals out to Ace and Chris.

The two spent three years under Anne's roof before everything changed. Again.

Luffy was actually the one who first noticed it, two weeks after his ninth birthday.

"Is Anne sad today?" he asked Ace, who looked up from the dinosaur puzzle he was doing. He'd found it in the basement and asked Anne if he could use it. She'd waved him off and told him she didn't care.

Ace frowned. "I don't know...do you think she is?" Luffy blinked a few times, turning his head to look out the window. "I"m not sure. She seems more unhappy than usual. I guess it's just a feeling I have."

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. Both boys twisted around to see Chris peeking into the room with a solemn expression on his face. Ace slipped off of the bed, and Chris smiled politely.

"Mom wants you guys to come downstairs," he told them. Luffy and Ace both exchanged glances and silently followed Chris to the kitchen, where Anne was sitting at the table.

Ace quickly hopped into a chair and Luffy smiled at her and sat down next to Ace as expected. "Boys," she said wearily, "I need to talk to you." She glanced down at the paper in front of her.

"I'm pregnant. You know what that means, right?" Ace nodded, and Luffy squinted at her with a look that clearly said otherwise. "Now, as much as I've enjoyed having you, I'm afraid I can't afford to keep foster children anymore."

Ace swallowed hard, and he felt his throat constrict. "It was only by chance that you two were placed together here since you aren't related by blood and the age difference," she said, brushing a thin strand of hair behind one ear.

"So now that you two aren't going to be staying with me, the foster system has moved you into two different homes." Luffy didn't seem to understand, and Ace was staring at her in horror.

He couldn't believe what she was saying.

It wasn't the fact that she was getting rid of them that surprised him, Ace always knew that it would happen someday, but he'd assumed that he and Luffy would stay together.

"I'm going to drop you off today, and send your things to your foster parents later in the week." Her voice grew softer as she murmured, "Please by ready to go by three."

She got up from the table and left to go upstairs, leaving Ace shell-shocked at the table. He was not only appalled, but angry. This woman had saved them by taking them in together.

Now she wasn't even giving them a day to come to terms with the fact that they might not see each other again? Ace looked at the clock on the wall. It was one in the afternoon.

Two hours.

Ace and Luffy spent those two hours in the only way they knew how: side by side. Luffy understood that something was about to happen, something he didn't like. He was still so innocent and blind in so many ways, despite what he'd gone through.

They curled up together in Ace's bed, talking to each other in hushed whispers. Ace couldn't get the nausea to go away, or keep the panic from settling in. He didn't know what to do, and for a moment, he wanted to be back at Mary's.

Because then Luffy could stay with him.

Ace dreaded the moment when Luffy's hand would be removed from his, and he didn't know if he could take it. Luffy was his ball of happiness in a cold, dark world, and he knew it.

Anne's call came all too soon, and Ace's legs felt stiff and numb as they padded downstairs. They slipped on their shoes and trudged out to the minivan, climbing into the back and settling against one another.

Luffy could feel the fast paced thumps of Ace's heart, and his own sped up to match. Ace was scared, which somehow made him scared too. Luffy knew something was wrong.

He could feel it down to his very core, and he hated it. Luffy clung to Ace as much as he could, but even Ace's warm, comforting aura couldn't quell the nervousness in his stomach.

Anne got into the car and pulled out of the driveway and onto the street. Luffy didn't fully understand a lot when grown ups told him things, and Ace seemed to be the only one he could really comprehend, so he trusted Ace to explain important stuff to him.

Ace hadn't told him exactly what it was that was going on, and Luffy got the feeling he was afraid to.

Luffy liked staying with Anne. She wasn't very fun or nice, but he liked her. She wasn't mean or hurtful like other people he'd seen. Anne never left them alone like the lady in the big house before did.

Ace never liked talking about the big house, so Luffy didn't bring it up. Sometimes he wondered if Ace thought he didn't remember a lot of things because he was little, but Luffy did.

He remembered a lot.

Luffy remembered the scary house and the tall boy who asked him to scream out every time he felt scared or hurt. He remembered before that, and the warm, kind lady with pretty ginger hair.

His memories went back even farther, but that's where everything became distorted; a blur of yelling and emotions. Anger, sadness, loneliness...and fear. So much fear.

Luffy blinked when he realized the car had stopped. He looked out the window at Anne as she clambered out of the car and shut the door. Luffy saw the house, small and white, with little red shutters and an air that screamed at him to run.

Panic suddenly seized him, and he glued himself to Ace's arm.

Ace looked down in surprise when he felt an iron grip circle his arm. Luffy looked frightened, and Ace figured that Luffy might've figured it out. He knew it was cruel to not just tell him outright, but that would have simply made Luffy flip out, making the process so much harder.

Anne motioned for Luffy to get out of the car. "No," Luffy whispered, and Anne sighed and opened the door. Luffy curled into a ball when Anne reached for him. "No, I wanna stay with you!" he sobbed.

"I wanna stay with you!" Ace felt his body begin to shake, and his throat ached as his eyes grew wet. Anne's arm hooked around Luffy's waist and began pulling him towards her.

To Luffy, it was like his entire world was crumbling to dust. "NO!" Ace felt Luffy's hand slip from his arm and Ace bit his bottom lip, trying desperately not to cry.

Luffy's fingers scrabbled at the car seat for purchase, and Anne had no choice but to haul him out of the car. "NO! I WANNA STAY WITH YOU! ACE! _ACE!_"he screamed, tears running down his face.

He kicked wildly in Anne's arms. Sobs wracked his entire frame, and his eyes were nearly shut with his arms still reaching towards the van. "_I WANNA STAY WITH ACE!"_

The front door to the house opened, revealing a stocky man with black hair and brown eyes. His lips were pursed in a thin line, and he stepped aside so Anne could put Luffy down inside.

_"I WANNA STAY WITH ACE!"_

The man shut the door gingerly after giving Anne a sympathetic smile, and she awkwardly waved goodbye. Even though Luffy was in the house, both Anne and Ace could hear him crying for his brother.

_"ACE!"_

Anne got into the drivers seat, and in the car, Ace broke down into tears. Anne's heart gave a small pang of guilt, but she she swallowed it down, refusing to look in the rearview mirror as she pulled away.

_"ACE!"_

In the house, the man looked down at him with a cold, hard stare. Luffy was on his knees, arms drawn to his chest, sobbing and looking around in terror. Where was Ace? Ace was gone. He wanted Ace.

Suddenly, pain exploded across his cheek, and Luffy gasped and fell silent. A strong grip got ahold of the front of his shirt and lifted him up so he was face to face with the man.

"Be quiet," he hissed, and Luffy trembled in his hold. The man dropped him to the ground and stalked off, muttering under his breath. A gentle hand came to rest on his shoulder, and Luffy flinched away from the touch.

The hand drew back, startled. "I'm not gonna hurt you," a voice said calmly. Luffy turned to see a boy around Ace's age standing there with a stunning hair color and sharp eyes.

He was dressed all in black, and there was a bruise on his jaw and under his eye. "I'm Roronoa Zoro," the boy told him. Luffy's lower lips trembled, and his eyes filled with tears again.

"O-Oi! Don't cry!" Zoro said, kneeling down next to Luffy. He grabbed his hand and roughly pulled him to his feet. Luffy stumbled, and Zoro quickly steadied him before glancing down the hall to see if the man was coming back.

"C'mon, let's go upstairs," Zoro said quietly.

The house small, and completely trashed. Cans and bottles and clothes were everywhere, making the entire house look even tinier. The stairs were on the left, and a hall was on the right, leading to the kitchen on the right and the living room and laundry room all the way back.

Upstairs wasn't any better. There were three rooms, two of bedrooms and one of them a bathroom. Zoro took Luffy to the farthest room. There was only one bed, and blankets and random items lay scattered everywhere.

Zoro shut the door part way, and Luffy slowly sat down on an open spot on the bed. "Sorry about the mess," Zoro muttered. Luffy didn't say anything. He could feel the tear tracks drying on his face, and he licked his lips.

"Am I staying here?" Zoro paused at the dry whisper. He turned his head to look at the boy, who looked more shell-shocked than anything else. He nodded, and the boy seemed to almost visibly deflate.

Zoro stepped over a beer can and sat down on the bed next to Luffy. "So, what's your name?" he asked gruffly. Luffy blinked a few times, his eyelashes feeling thick and heavy.

"Luffy." Zoro nodded. "Uh, downstairs...that's Ben. He's the foster parent or whatever." He cleared his throat, eyes drifting across the room to find something to talk about so he could fill the silence.

"Where'd you come from, anyway?" Luffy sniffled and reached up to wipe his nose on his sleeve. "Anne's house," he murmured hoarsely. Zoro frowned in confusion. He didn't know any Anne, did he?...Nope.

He glanced at Luffy. "Was that another foster home?" Luffy nodded and slowly brought his knees up to his chest. Zoro clicked his tongue. "The other guy in the car, who was he?"

Luffy's eyes grew moist, and a single lone tear slipped out of the corner of his eye.

"My big brother. Ace."


	9. Chapter 9

"Ace? Are you okay?" Ace nodded, and Carmen smiled gently. "Okay," she said soothingly. "I'm making cookies in the kitchen, so if you want one, feel free to come down."

Ace nodded mutely, and Carmen smiled once more before she stepped out and carefully shut the door. Ace swallowed. He liked Carmen. She was a small, Chinese woman with dark hair cut at her shoulders, warm brown eyes and a kind smile.

She was also very loving towards him, even though he'd only been there for a little over two hours. Carmen worked very well with kids. So far, Ace was the only foster child there, though Carmen told had mentioned that more would be coming in a few months.

Ace, however, couldn't take comfort in any of her affections. Luffy's anguished screams echoed in his ears, and his heart clenched painfully. His eyes began to water again, and he scrubbed the tears awat angrily.

He didn't have the right to cry. Ace knew how alone he really was. He didn't have Luffy, which meant for the first time since they'd met, he was completely on his own.

Ace inhaled deeply, and tried to suppress the growing ache in his chest, and the unbidden wish that he could just hold Luffy again. One more time.

* * *

Luffy was hopeless.

Zoro was sure of it, and there was nothing he could do. The boy had moved in sixteen days ago, and even though Ben slapped him around and Zoro got annoyed with him more times than not, he still made an effort to smile every morning.

He desperately missed this Ace person he told Zoro about, that much was painstakingly clear. Zoro asked him why he kept grinning all the time, and Luffy's response was nothing like Zoro was expecting.

_"Ace likes it when I smile. I can tell. So, even though he's not here anymore, I'll smile. Just for him."_

It was strange for Zoro to wake up each day to be greeted with a bright smile and a cheerful demeanor. It usually caught him off guard for a few moment before he scowled and pushed Luffy off of his bed, telling him not to be such an idiot.

Luffy would just chuckle and brush it off, continuing to cling to Zoro at nearly all times of the day.

"Zoro," he whined, tugging on the boy's arm, "Play with me!" Zoro groaned, throwing his other arm over his face. He wondered if he could somehow manage to shove Luffy in a closet for the day, just so he could sleep.

"Please?"

Zoro peeked out at him when he stopped whining, only to see big, brown, pitiful eyes staring at him. He recoiled almost instantly when they grew wet, and seemed to get even bigger.

A prime example of the rare 'kicked puppy look', the longer Zoro looked at him, the more he was pulled in under its power. It truly was a thing to be feared. Especially when Zoro made a face, sighing loudly.

"Fine," he groused. The heart-breaking expression was instantly wiped from Luffy's face, to be replaced by the cheerful glow the boy regularly carried. Zoro dragged himself from his warm bed, grumbling under his breath.

"What do you wanna do?" he yawned, stretching his arms above his head. Luffy cocked his head to the side as he pondered the question. That was another thing.

While Luffy was able to unconsciously made split-second decisions, subjects that required actual _thought_ were beyond him. "Uhh..." Point proven. Zoro distantly heard the thump of the front door, signaling that Ben had gone to work.

"Let's go downstairs, then, yeah?" Luffy simply grinned. "Okay!" he exclaimed happily, and Zoro resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

They had roughly about six hours before Ben returned and curled up in the living room, making nothing of his pathetic excuse of a life. That was Zoro's opinion, anyway.

Zoro began rummaging through the mess in the kitchen, and scored a bag of chips. He shoveled a handful into his mouth and held the bag high above his head to keep Luffy from swiping it.

Luffy pouted, but quickly brightened when he found a half eaten box of cereal. The sugary kind. Zoro sighed and tossed the bag onto the couch in the living room, keeping them out of Luffy's sight, before moving back to the kitchen table and sifting through the mail.

He frowned at the amount of bills, but his motto was: If he didn't have to pay it, he didn't care. The next envelope made him pause.

It was a bit worse for wear, and their address was written sloppily on the front, but he clearly read the name printed on the front. Monkey D. Luffy. Zoro glanced up at the boy who was munching on cereal and digging through the cabinets for other things.

"Oi, Luffy. You've got mail," he called. Luffy turned around, half of a piece of bread sticking out of his mouth. He shoved the rest in and swallowed it in one gulp, making the older boy cringe.

"Ehh? From who?" Luffy asked, and Zoro raised the envelope to peer at the name scrawled in the corner. "Uh, it's that Ace guy!" Luffy's eyes widened, and suddenly he was scrambling over the mess to the table, where Zoro was waving the envelope in air tantalizingly.

"Give it!" he insisted, and Zoro slid it across the table without a word. Luffy was about to rip it open when he remembered there was a very important letter inside. He peeled it open with more care than Zoro thought he was capable of.

Once he had the letter out, he placed the envelope down on the table and raised the paper to his face, squinting at the words. There were a few moments of silence before Luffy peeked at Zoro over the top of the paper.

"...Ne, Zoro?" Luffy asked timidly. "Huh?" Zoro asked, his gaze remaining transfixed on the grocery catalogue beneath him. "...Can you help me read it?" Zoro glanced up at Luffy, who watched him expectantly.

Zoro sighed irritably. "Fine. Give it here." He held his hand out and Luffy hesitated before handing it over. Zoro began reading, and he only got through a few lines before he was looking at Luffy again.

"You should be able to read it fine. It ain't hard." Luffy blinked at him a few times, and Zoro suddenly had a hunch as to what was going on. "Luffy, you know how to read, right?"

Luffy blinked again. "Nope." Zoro groaned, bringing a hand up to cover his face. "So what, you want me to read this to you or somethin'?" Luffy grinned, and Zoro huffed.

"Fine, but just this once," he muttered, and if it was possible, Luffy's beaming smile grew even bigger. Zoro briefly wondered if smiles could blind people. He cleared his throat before he began.

"Dear Luffy, how are you? I'm okay. I moved in with a nice lady named Carmen. I think you would really like her, especially since she makes good cookies. How are you? Ah- I asked that already. Look, Luffy, I want to say I'm sorry. I didn't say anything when we were being separated, and I should've, because I'm supposed to be an awesome big brother, right? I hope you'll forgive me. I miss you, Luffy. From, Ace."

Zoro looked up at Luffy, who was resting his head on his hands, with his elbows braced on the table. He was quiet, which was rather unnerving. "Luffy," Zoro said, and Luffy snapped out of his reverie.

"Hmm?" Zoro held out the letter for him to take. Luffy quickly snatched it out of his hand, holding it to his chest like it was the precious thing on earth.

That night, long after Ben came home and everyone else was sleeping, Luffy stayed up, tracing the contours of the letters reading the message over and over again even though he couldn't recognize most of the words. He knew small ones, like 'I' and 'you'.

The paper was a bit crumpled around the edges and stark white, like snow.

It was written in red pen, and most of the sentences held words that were scribbled out and replaced. At the bottom of the page, before Ace's name, was a heavily scribbled out section about two inches long.

Ace had tried to mark it out as much of possible, probably out of embarrassment, but Luffy recognized the three words anyway.

_I love you._


	10. Chapter 10

"Ne, Zoro?"

Internally, he groaned. Why was he being punished? He hadn't done anything bad- that he remembered, so why couldn't the universe let him _sleep_?

He cracked one eye. Two large, round eyes stared back from the edge of the bed. Zoro's lips turn down in a scowl. "...Are you sitting on the floor?"

Luffy inched closer, raising his head to rest his chin on the comforter. "Uhuh," he replied.

Zoro opened both eyes and looked up at his ceiling. He bit back an irritated sigh. "Why?"

The boy blinked once, twice, then tilted his head to the side. "Eh? I was waiting for you to wake up."

Zoro sighed. Only someone like Luffy could watch him sleep and not realize how creepy that would be to certain people. "What do you want?" he asked.

Luffy smiled, a full face grin that instantly made Zoro wary. "I want you to teach me how to read." Zoro blinked, narrowing his eyes at the younger boy.

"And how to write too," Luffy added.

Zoro groaned, laying his head back on his pillow and he returned his gaze up to the ceiling.

"You didn't ask nicely," he muttered, throwing an arm over his face even though he was knew there was no way Luffy was letting him fall asleep again.

"Please? Please, Zoro? Pleeeeeeaaase?" Luffy whined, tugging on Zoro's blanket.

The teenager grumbled under his breath, but slowly sat up and kicked off his blanket. It was warm, soft, and way too tempting.

"Fine," he groused, "But only if you actually pay attention."

Luffy beamed. "Yay!" he cried, throwing his arms into the air. Zoro rolled his eyes and stifled a yawn.

Luffy leapt to his feet and proceeded to hurriedly thrust a crumpled piece of paper and a pencil in his face.

"Can we do it now? Please?"

Zoro winced at the sudden onslaught of white to his eyes and rubbed his face, yawning into his sleeve. "Eh..."

Luffy made a strangled noise and shook the items like a desperate toddler. "Please? Please? Please?"

The teenager sighed once more. "Fine. Fine! Just be quiet, will you?" Luffy sat down and crossed his legs, looking up at Zoro with his full attention.

Of which Zoro knew he only had a few seconds of before the idiot got distracted by something else and ran off to go God knows what.

"So," he began, "What do you already know?"

* * *

"You're hopeless! I give up."

"Eh? Who's hopeless?"

"You."

"_Eh?_ Why am I hopeless?'

Zoro's face landed in his pillow with a dull thud. "You can't even pay attention to _that,_" he murmured, though to Luffy it was too muffled by the cloth to make out.

"Ne, Zoro, what did you say?" Luffy questioned innocently. Zoro once again dwindled on the idea of shoving Luffy into a closet, just for a day, so he could get some peace and quiet.

The two had been working for nearly three hours, and Luffy could only retain a small number of the letters, and even less of the words Zoro had been trying to teach him.

Along with the fact that Luffy could never identify any of his mistakes and was constantly falling asleep, Zoro was most definitely done for the day. And probably the year.

* * *

"Ace, dear; You have a letter!"

Ace's head snapped up from where he had been hunched over his desk, working on his homework. The page was filled with numbers and symbols, all arranged in one way or another to get a different answer.

Ace found it all very confusing, and really, very useless.

He nearly sprinted down the stairs, the loud thuds of his footsteps echoing down the hall to the kitchen, where Carmen was whisking eggs in a bowl and the letter in question was waiting on the counter. She shook her head, smiling to herself.

Ace dashed into the room only moments later, face flushed and eyes searching. "It's on the counter, honey," she told him, and he aimed a breathless thanks her way before snatching up the envelope and hurrying back to his room.

Deer Ace,

How are you? I am good. I live in a big house with grumpy Zoro, who is in bed all day. I like him. I think you wod like him to. Thank you for the letter. Zoro says too say it even though I say you no it. Not alot gooes on in the day, oh Zoro says it is time to eat.

Bye bye, Ace.

I love you big broter.

Luffy

P.S. I four got to say I put in a pikchur.

P.P.S. Zoro says too say sorry four my speling.

Ace couldn't deny that Luffy's spelling was pretty horrible, but he loved the letter nonetheless. He fingered the pencil marks, most of which were smudged, but the deep, dark lines showed that the writer took time carefully marking down the letters one by one.

The only thing that dimmed Ace's happiness was that, even though he was proud that Luffy wrote him, he hadn't had that ability when Ace left. It was something he learned only recently.

They had been separated only a month by then, and already Ace was missing out on things happening in Luffy's life. While one part of him knew that, really, it wasn't his fault, another part was upset that in no time Luffy would grow up, and Ace would miss it.

He sighed, shaking his head to clear his negative thoughts away. A quick rummage through the envelope gave Ace a thick square of paper, and he deftly peeled it apart to reveal a large pirate flag drawn on the page.

Luffy had written 'To big broter' in the top left corner, and signed his name at the bottom left corner, both in red crayon.

Ace smiled, and placed it carefully on his desk, on top of his abandoned homework. The letter soon joined it, and Ace retreated to his bed.

He curled up in the sheets and laid there, thinking.

* * *

**...Please don't kill me. I want to live. I know it's been centuries since I updated this, and I am genuinely sorry, especially to those who left reviews at the end of every chapter for me. Honestly, I lost my drive to write. I didn't think it was possible, but writing never crossed my mind for a long time. I remembered this only morning, and decided to try and finish the saved document (it was the only one left, the one one that had yet to be erased). It's not much of a chapter, but it's better than nothing...right? Thanks for your support, and please, for those who've put together a mob while I've been away, put down your torches. **


	11. Chapter 11

One year later:

"Luffy?"

The raven jerked out of his reverie, blinking sleepily. "Eh?" he mumbled, rubbing his eyes. Zoro stood in the doorway to their room, frowning at a piece of paper he held firmly in his hands. The paper was crisp and clean, the color of snow.

"Luffy..." Zoro's tone made Luffy sit up straight, and he peered at the older boy curiously. "Zoro? What's that?" Zoro's gaze lifted from the paper, and he swallowed once. "I'm being sent to another foster home," he said, dazed.

Luffy blinked once, then twice. "Huh?" Zoro raised a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, his eyes falling shut and brow furrowing. He lowered his other arm to his side, the paper still clutched in his fingers.

At the top, it read: _The National Foster Parent Association._ Luffy's eyes grew wide. "You're...going?" Zoro's expression softened, but internally, the confusion and anxiety remained.

"No...no, Zoro.. Zoro, you can't go," Luffy murmured quietly. He rose to his feet and went to Zoro's side. "No, Zoro, you can't. You can't go. You can't go, okay? You won't go without me, okay? I'm going to go with you?" His big, round eyes searched Zoro's, almost pleadingly.

Zoro's mouth was dry, and no matter how many times he swallowed, the hard, painful lump in his throat wouldn't go away. Why was he trembling? Even though he kept blinking, why were his eyes watering? He wasn't crying, that's for sure, because he didn't cry and he'd beat the crap out of anyone who said differently.

He wasn't crying because he had nothing to cry about, either.

Zoro hated the house, he hated the man who threw up in the downstairs bathroom because he was up drinking all night, and he hated looking outside everyday and knowing he would be stuck in a horrible life until he died.

Then Luffy came along, all bright smiles and laughter, with an endless stomach and a yell that could probably echo for miles if he made the effort.

There were warm mornings and fun nights, and even the brat's whining wasn't so bad once you got used to it.

What would his future be now?

"I'm sorry, Luffy."

Luffy snatched Zoro's arm and pinned it to his chest with strength Zoro didn't know he had. "Zoro, I want to go with you. Okay?"

The kid was breaking Zoro's heart.

Zoro knew why Luffy mentally regressed in less than a minute, but in reality, there wasn't much of anything he could do to soothe him. If the system wanted to move Zoro, then he would be moved, regardless of what anyone said.

Luffy had been abandoned by whoever had him when he was little, and then he was separated from his brother, and now the kid had to go through it all over again and Zoro felt guilty as hell.

"Luffy, it's not up to me." Luffy went quiet, and Zoro glanced down at him quizzically. "Oi, Luffy." The raven haired boy remained silent, even when Zoro tentatively shook his arm to get his attention.

"Hey...Hey!" Luffy looked up at him. He looked withdrawn and tired, so unlike Luffy that Zoro scowled. "Oi, no matter what happens we'll see each other again, yeah? I'll find you, or you'll find me."

* * *

Luffy watched the car pull away, and stayed at the window long after he'd lost sight of it.

Ben told him he'd be leaving too, in a few days, for a new foster home. For that, Luffy was glad. He didn't want to stay there, now that Zoro was gone. The house seemed so empty and cold, and he withdrew to Zoro's room, uncharacteristically quiet.

He would curl up in Zoro's bed, burrowed in the thick black comforter, and breathe in Zoro's scent. It was calming, and yet, it made him miss the grumpy teen all the more. Sometimes, he rifled through what Zoro had left behind. Notebooks with nothing but random paragraphs and bad doodles filling the pages, most of them from Zoro's 'lessons' in reading and writing for Luffy, though the boy found that some seemed to be missing.

And every now and again, he would simply lay spread eagled on the floor, watching the fan slowly rotate around and around, too slow for an actual breeze. Luffy would wish that for some reason, Zoro came back, or that he would go to the place he'd gone to.

In the end, he left all too soon. He found a black backpack under Zoro's bed, and stuffed it with Zoro's notebooks, pencils, and his comforter. The last item had barely fit, and it made the bag bulge comically, but Luffy didn't care. He crawled into the backseat with the backpack on his lap, buried his face into the coarse fabric, and breathed in the comforting scent of his friend as the car rumbled to life.

Luffy didn't look up once, and he was just beginning to grow drowsy when the car slowed to a stop, and the engine shut off.

Ben hadn't driven him, the new foster parent had, but Luffy hadn't bothered to look at them at all. The car door on his side opened, and there stood a tall, burly man with dark hair and broad shoulders. Luffy looked up at him curiously.

"Who're you?"

The man huffed a laugh, but it was more than a little sarcastic. "Now he speaks. I'm Arlong. You're stayin' here for a while, got it?" Luffy nodded. Oddly enough, Arlong didn't scare him, not in the least. He turned his gaze to the house.

To be more precise, it was an apartment building. Luffy counted four floors in the brick building, and didn't mind when Arlong led him up the stairs to the third floor, instead of taking the elevator.

Arlong grunted in approval. "Most kids complain about the stairs. I can't stand whiners," he said, though it made no sense Luffy. The large man led him down the hall, stopping in front of a pale door, numbered forty-six.

He dug through his pockets until he found what Luffy assumed was the key, and opened the door, stepping back to let Luffy go in first. The boy looked around curiously. They stood in a large room, with the kitchen set up in the left corner and the living room taking up the rest, which was really just three old couch positioned around a small table and facing towards a good-sized TV.

On one of the couches, a maroon corduroy couch, a girl lay sprawled with a large atlas open on her stomach. She raised her head when the door opened, and glanced at Luffy as he slowly entered the apartment.

"Who's he?" she asked Arlong, who walked away from Luffy in favor of sitting in an armchair in the farthest corner of the room. A large table was next to it, completely covered in books, maps, and scattered sheets of notebook paper.

"The new foster kid," he replied, opening an atlas and comparing it to one of the maps he pulled from a small stack of papers. The girl watched Luffy for a minute as he looked in wonder at the many ornate objects on shelves and in display cases.

Her fingers drummed against the page.

She brushed a strand of red hair behind her ear. "What's his name?" When she received no answer, she turned to look at Arlong, who shrugged, and she returned her gaze to the boy with a sigh. "Hey!"

Luffy twisted to look at her. "What's your name?" the girl repeated, mouth turned down in irritation.

He grinned at her, the intensity of which caught her off-guard. "Luffy."

The girl made a face, as though she'd just eaten something rather nasty. "Luffy? What kind of name is that?" He shrugged, and she resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "I'm Nami," she told him.

Luffy's grin widened, and she huffed. "The other one is Usopp. You'll meet him sooner or later," she added, when Luffy looked around in confusion. "The three doors over there are our rooms," she continued, pointing behind Luffy.

He turned to see three doors, only a few feet apart from one another. "The one on the left is mine, the one on the right is Usopp's, and the middle one's yours."

Luffy nodded, opening the middle door and slipping inside. The room had a window in the center of the far back wall, casting little light over its contents. There was a bunk bed against the far wall as well, the top bed partially covering the window. A worn, dusty bean bag chair was slumped in the corner to Luffy's left. Old, crumpled sheets of paper, pencils, along with the occasional rubber band, were cast about the dirty grey carpet floor.

Yet, Luffy wasn't bothered. He didn't care about the dirtiness of the room; he was happy to have a bed, and the growing excitement over a new home was beginning to make him jittery. Nami seemed perfectly nice, and he smiled at the thought of having a new friend.

Luffy tossed his backpack onto the top bunk and crawled up the ladder, climbing onto the mattress on all fours. He sat down, pulling the black bag into his lap, and unzipping it to pull out Zoro's comforter. It was still warm from all the time he'd been hugging the bag in the car, on the way from Ben's. Snuggling with the backpack held close against his chest, he wrapped himself in the blanket; a makeshift cocoon.

He wasn't sure when he fell asleep, but the next thing he knew, Nami was gently shaking him awake. At Luffy's confused expression as he blinked sleepily, she kindly informed him that dinner was ready, and waited for Luffy to clamber down before leading him to the kitchen.

She directed the boy to sit at the end of the table, and sat in the chair to his right. Across from her was someone new, a boy with curly hair and an uncommonly long nose. He grinned cheekily as Luffy and Nami sat down. "Hello!" he greeted cheerfully. "My name's Usopp. I hear you're the newbie."

Luffy felt a smile pull at the corners of his own mouth. "I'm Luffy."

Usopp tried to subtly swipe one of the potatoes out of a bowl of many, and Nami expertly smacked his hand away with a spoon, Luffy confused as to where it came from, because she hadn't had it a second ago...

"Don't even think about it," Nami warned, narrowing her eyes threateningly at Usopp, who sputtered indignantly.

"Wha-"

"Don't try to lie your way out of it, either."

Usopp leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest and pouting. Luffy laughed, full and loud, and both Nami and Usopp turned their heads to stare at the younger boy. "You're funny!" he told them, and Usopp couldn't help but laugh too.

Even Nami smiled, though she still rolled her eyes.

By the time Arlong sat down at the other end of the table, Usopp and Luffy were laughing so hard that they were doubled over, gasping for breath and blinking back tears. Nami was trying to stifle her laughter beneath her hands, but with no avail.

"What are you laughing about?" Arlong asked, one eyebrow raised.

They only laughed harder.

* * *

**Can you tell which half was written a while ago and which half was written today? Can you tell at which point of the chapter I became motivated? Yeah, it's kind of obvious. :P In other words, I'M BACK! I'll try to stay as long as I can! :D**

**Please review, feedback would be very much appreciated, as would some verbal kick-in-the-pants' to keep me writing! **

**P.S. *deep bow* So sorry about the wait, please put any and all pitchforks down... :)**


	12. Chapter 12

The food was delicious, and Luffy couldn't get enough. He shoveled down nearly half the bowl of potatoes, a quarter of the plate of vegetables, and six large slices of beef, with no intention of stopping.

Nami couldn't fathom how so much food could fit inside Luffy's wiry body, and Usopp enjoyed Luffy's enthusiasm. He challenged the younger boy to an eating contest, and suffered a huge defeat.

Arlong didn't talk much, choosing instead to eat and return to his table when he was done, leaving the three kids at the dinner table on their own. Luffy watched him go, and turned to Nami, a puzzled expression on his face. "What's he doing?" he wondered aloud.

Nami glanced at Arlong, her lips pressed into a thin line. "He just studies maps. I don't really know why, and I don't care enough to ask him." Her tone was darker than before, and Luffy cocked his head.

"Do you not like him?" he asked her.

Nami shrugged, scooping up more potatoes and depositing them on her plate with a soft thump. "I don't hate him," she admitted softly, "But I don't like him, either. He just stays over there, day after day. Don't bother him, and you'll be fine."

Usopp waved his hand in the air dismissively. "You're too serious, Nami," he complained. "Arlong's just obsessive." He turned his focus on Luffy, discarding the topic entirely. "So," he began, "What about you? Where did you live before?"

Luffy shrugged. "I don't know," he said.

Usopp frowned. "Eh? How do you not know?"

Luffy shrugged again. "I never really thought about it, and Zoro didn't tell me," he explained. He quickly downed another forkful of potatoes in one gulp, and Usopp cringed.

Nami rested her chin on her palm, watching Luffy. "Zoro?" she asked.

The raven haired boy nodded eagerly, a wide smile spreading across his face. "Yeah! Roronoa Zoro! He's my friend. We used to live together."

Nami 'hmm'ed. "So this isn't your first foster home." Luffy shook his head. "Where did Zoro go? Did he stay behind?" Luffy shook his head again, and Nami sighed in exasperation. "You went to different foster homes?" She received a nod in reply, and she herself nodded, in understanding.

She looked Luffy up and down with a critical eye. "How old are you?" Luffy blinked owlishly, and Nami felt her eyebrows rise. "You don't know how old you are?" she asked skeptically.

Luffy suddenly gasped, waving his arms like Christmas had come early, eyes wide with excitement. "Oh! Oh! Uh, on my birthday, Ace said I'm nine," he chirped.

Nami blinked, her chest tightening a fraction. Nine. He was so young, younger than Nami was when she became part of the foster system at ten. She realized she was staring only when Luffy began staring back with a puzzled expression.

"Who's Ace?" she asked quickly.

At the mention him, Luffy brightened, if that was possible, his mouth stretching into an even bigger grin. "Ace is my big brother!" the boy declared proudly, much to the confusion of both Nami and Usopp.

"Your big brother?" Nami echoed.

Luffy went on with boundless enthusiasm. "His full name is Portgas D. Ace, and he's the best big brother in the world, 'cause he's nice and he plays with me and takes care of me, and we were at that nice lady's house together, and that mean lady's scary house, and Anne's-"

"Wait, I thought siblings stayed together," Usopp cut in, looking at Nami for confirmation.

She nodded slowly, brow creased and frowning. "Luffy," she said, getting the boy's attention, "When you say Ace is your brother, do you mean that you both had the same parents?"

Luffy thought about it, and the silence stretched into several long seconds before he finally answered, "I dunno. I don't think so. We met at the nice lady's house."

"Ah," Nami clapped her hands once. "I get it. So, he's not actually your biological brother."

Luffy's cheerfulness drained away in seconds as he processed her words, and was replaced a moment later by anger. He scowled, eyebrows drawing together. "He _is_ my brother!" he insisted, voice raised to a shout. "A brother is family; someone who loves you and takes care of you and plays with you, and you can talk to them about anything! That's Ace, so he's my big brother! Don't say he isn't!"

His chest heaved, and Luffy realized that at some point he had gotten to his feet, and now he stood ramrod straight, hands balled into fists and face bright red.

Nami was looking up at him, eyes wide with shock. Usopp was dumbstruck, his mouth open in a small 'o'. Arlong had put down his book to see what all the yelling was about, and a tense silence enveloped the room.

Luffy was suddenly very aware of all eyes on him. He was never self-conscious before, but right then he just wanted to run back to his room, curl up in Zoro's blanket, and pretend the world didn't exist.

He swallowed, and took a step back, starting when his legs hit his chair. Nami opened her mouth, and Luffy quickly turned away. He kept his eyes on the floor as he fled to his room, not wanting to look at anybody at the moment.

"Luffy-"

The door shut with a loud click, and Luffy scurried up the ladder to the top bunk, where Zoro's blanket still lay in a large heap. He sniffled, lifting the end so he could shimmy underneath. The mattress had cooled, but Luffy didn't mind, and laid on his stomach with his arms pulled in as much as possible and his chest pressed to the cool sheet under him. It smelled of dust.

Luffy had the blanket tucked around him as tightly as he could pull it without fear of ripping it, completely buried underneath. He breathed, feeling at least temporarily safer.

There was a painful ache in his chest. It was really uncomfortable, Luffy wanted it to go away. And more than anything, he wished Ace was there. Every time the thought crossed his mind, the aching only got worse, and to make matters worse, an annoying prickle had begun in his eyes.

It made him mad, but the feeling soon gave way to anguish.

What if he never got to see Ace again? Or Zoro?

Something hot and wet was seeping into the sheet, and the spots grew cold against Luffy's face. He scrubbed away the wetness angrily, and sniffled again.

Luffy froze when he heard the door to his bedroom open with a creak.

"Luffy?"

Nami. Her voice was quiet, nervous. When he didn't answer, the shuffle of socks on carpet drew nearer, until Luffy was aware of a presence standing next to the bunk bed. His heart was pounding horribly, though Luffy wasn't sure why- either way, it was weird and annoying, and he wanted it to _stop-_

"Luffy, I'm sorry."

He blinked, swallowing. His throat was dry.

"I shouldn't have said that, it was mean. Sorry. Are you okay?"

Luffy waited a beat, then slowly felt for the edge of the blanket. He grasped it tightly in his fingers, and peeled the comforter back from over his head as he sat up, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his other arm.

Nami's eyes widened when she saw his face, and her expression became strained. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Luffy, I didn't mean it." Luffy frowned at her, wondering what she was talking about. He reached up and gently touched his cheeks, his frown deepening as his fingertips rubbed over the salt trails.

"Huh?"

Nami mirrored his confusion, until she realized he hadn't been crying because of what she said, at least, not directly. She licked her lips, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. "Luffy, why were you crying?"

Luffy used his sleeves to wipe down his face, sniffing. "I wasn't," he pouted, and Nami lips twitched in a small smile. Glancing at Luffy for permission, and receiving no protest, she carefully climbed up to sit next to Luffy, legs dangling over the edge.

She swung them back and forth absently. "Then what are you sad about?"

It seemed like minutes passed before Luffy finally spoke, but Nami knew it was only a few seconds.

"I don't know..," Luffy mumbled, "I was thinking about Ace...and how I want him to be here...but he's not." The last words were spoken in a sharper tone. Luffy sniffled. "I want him here," he choked, and his fist hit the mattress with a thump. "But he's not, but I _want_ him here." His voice broke, and he tried to scrub away the returning tears, face crumpling.

Nami laid a hand on Luffy's back, dimly noting the impressive heat radiating off of him. "Hey. Hey...," she hushed him, her hand sliding to Luffy's shoulder. She wrapped her arm around him and he obediently curled against her.

"It's okay," she whispered gently, soothingly. "It's okay."

Luffy tried to swallow around the lump in his throat, and took a shuddering breath. Nami's hand rubbed his shoulder; it was comforting, and Luffy clamped down on a rising sob.

Gradually, he felt himself calm down, the painful coil in his chest loosening. He suddenly felt light-headed, and he drew in another deep breath.

They sat in silence for what seemed like forever, Nami watching the rise and fall of Luffy's chest and listening to every inhale and exhale, while Luffy concentrated only on the steady pulse of Nami's heartbeat.

"We played pirates."

It was a near-silent whisper, but caught Nami off-guard nonetheless. "What?"

Luffy blinked, staring at a sheet of paper on the floor that bore a large, brown footprint across most of the page. "We played pirates," he said quietly, "When we were in the scary house." A soft sigh escaped his lips. "I wanted to play, and Ace taught me how to play pirates."

"Sounds like fun," Nami murmured, and Luffy nodded, a faint smile gracing his features.

"Yeah." He gazed up at her. "I was the Pirate King," he informed her.

Nami looked at him, making a show of being thoroughly impressed. "Oh, really?" And just like the kid he was, Luffy drank it up. Nami figured it couldn't hurt, especially when she had no idea what a Pirate King was, except for what it sounded like.

"Uhuh, and I was the strongest one ever!" Luffy bragged, eyes twinkling with delight.

It was adorable, to say the least, and Nami smiled in amusement. "You really like pirates, huh?" Luffy's blinding grin was answer enough.

"It made me forget about the scary house," he confessed, grin slipping away. He looked at Nami again, and she was struck by the intensity of his gaze. "Ace is really the best," he told her firmly. He sounded so confident, so sure, that Nami almost believed him.

"He sounds like it," she replied truthfully.

Luffy nodded, seeming satisfied with her answer, and returned to staring across the room. Once again, they sat in comfortable silence. And once again, it was Luffy who broke it.

"Hey, Nami?" he began softly.

"Hmm?"

"Are we friends?"

Nami blinked once, then twice. She tucked some of her hair behind her ear and looked down at Luffy, who'd turned his head to face her with big, round eyes full of questioning.

She wasn't sure what to say, so she flashed him a smile and said, "Sure, why not?"

Luffy beamed, laughing crazily, and threw his arms around Nami in a hug. She squeaked in surprise, but didn't try to disentangle herself from him just yet.

"...Nami?"

"Mmm?"

"How old are you?"

"..Thirteen. Why?"

"Eh?! I thought you were a grown-up!"

* * *

***does jig* I'm still here! :D Thank you so, SO much for the reviews! They really made me smile. :)**

**I know some of you have been wondering what's up with Ben being a jerk, and Arlong being pretty nice (in comparison to most of the foster parents in this fic). To be honest, I totally forgot about Ben being a part of Shanks' crew; I was just trying to come up with a name.. :P As for Arlong, I don't really know why I chose him, maybe it's because I watched that arc recently, but a part of me is curious as to what he would be like as a regular human being in the modern world, you know? I tried to write him in character, while keeping in mind that if he was a human being, he would be raised to be very different than how he is in canon 'verse. He wouldn't have the whole 'mermen are better than humans' complex, and would live according to the morals we teach our children today.**

**Does that make sense?**

**Oi, Skysword, have you been looking at my fic notes? *squints eyes suspiciously* :) And thank you so much! That seriously means a lot.**

**a84vpszy, oh my god, you always make me laugh and grin like an idiot, thank you! And I like chocolate and milk, and chocolate milk! :P**

**MissJenca, thank you, it's nice to be back. :) I really do torture Luffy, don't I?**

**tenebreyami, I wasn't depressed...Hmm, how do I explain it? Have you ever been really mentally exhausted, and your brain kind of turns to mush? That's basically what was going on, and I also have to be very passionate and into a fic in order to write half-way decently. And thank you so much for your kind words! *dies* Thank you, thank you! :D**

**the girl who envies books, I hope I explained my reasoning in a way that makes at least a little sense...and I totally agree! Luffy's not the same without it! (Don't worry, the time will come :P )**

**nanigirl15, yeah, a lot of people had to wait quite a while...I'll do my best to keep the ball rolling on this fic; waiting for updates is painful, no? :)**

**luckyhappypants, ah! Thank you! I'm glad. :D I get worried, especially since some of my chapters are pretty rotten.. *cringes* **

**If I tried to reply to every review, this author's note would go on for quite some time, and I assume you all would rather have me just post the chapter rather than sit here whittling away. Am I right? So, I genuinely apologize to those I didn't get around to responding to.**

**Sorry this was so long.. PLEASE REVIEW!**


	13. Chapter 13

"I was a pirate once. I had the most fearsome crew, made of a thousand men! We sailed the seas for ten years, and gots lots of treasure, but alas! The treasure was lost in a great battle.."

Luffy's eyes nearly bugged out of his head, and he hung onto every word. "Awesome!" he cried, face filled with awe.

Usopp grinned, lifting his head proudly. "Yes!" he agreed, "We were awesome! So awesome, that- ow!" He recoiled, turning around to see Nami, an atlas in one hand and her other curled in a fist. "Oi, Nami, what was that for?"

The redhead scowled. "Stop that," she ordered. "Luffy actually believes you!"

"So?"

Nami shook her head. "Honestly," she groused, "If you're going to tell him about pirates, at least talk about _real _ones."

Both boys stared at her. Luffy gasped, eyes sparkling. "There are real pirates?!" he exclaimed, bouncing up and down with joy.

She smiled, and nodded, folding her arms across her chest. "Of course."

Luffy laughed loudly in delight, springing to his feet. "Wow! There are pirates! That is so cool!" he babbled, so jittery with energy that he jumped _over_ the table between the three couches, onto the opposite one. He looked back at Nami and Usopp, giggling wildly.

Nami rolled her eyes, and set the atlas she held down on the table. No sooner than she sat down on the only empty couch, between the ones Luffy and Usopp occupied, did Luffy bound to her side.

"Pirates! What are they like? Do they have big ships? They have a pirate flag, right?" He was perched next to her, crouched on the adjoining seat, and practically wriggling with anticipation.

Nami raised an eyebrow, tipping back until she felt her back rest against the back of the couch.

"I want to be a pirate when I grow up," Luffy sighed dreamily. At the thought, he took on a more determined expression. "Yosh! I'll be the best pirate ever, the Pirate King!" He grabbed Nami's sleeve, shaking her arm impatiently. "Nami!" he whined, "Tell me about 'em!"

The redhead slapped his hands away angrily, reclaiming her arm. "Don't you start whining," she scolded. "Besides," she added, "It's late, and we have school tomorrow."

Luffy tilted his head to the side, perplexed. "Eh? School?"

Usopp grimaced, and gave a sorely exaggerated groan, flopping down onto his stomach. "That place sucks," he complained, one hand coming to his forehead dramatically. "Why don't we just skip?" he offered.

"No skipping," came the immediate response, Arlong not even glancing up from his work. Usopp made a face, clearly unhappy.

Luffy turned to Usopp, shuffling closer to him, which incidentally, almost landed him in Nami's lap, to her aggravation. "Why does it suck?" he asked innocently, and Usopp regarded him with disbelief.

"You know," the boy said, "Math and science, that kind of stuff." He only received a blank stare.

Usopp blanched. "Luffy," he began slowly, "You _have _been to school before...right?" Nami's gaze slid over to Luffy, who merely blinked.

"Nope."

"What?!" the two cried in unison.

"You're kidding!" Nami exclaimed, he had her full attention.

Luffy shook his head. "Nope," he said seriously, and out of the corner of his eye he spotted something moving. Upon further inspection, he found it to be a dust bunny, and he easily became entranced as it danced over the slits of the air vent.

"How is that possible? Didn't your parents ever send you to school?"

The dust bunny twirled.

"Nope," he replied distractedly.

It swooped upwards into a loop, and quickly dropped until it was propelled back into the air.

"Foster parents?" Usopp inquired.

"Nope."

Nami pinched the bridge of her nose, eyes slipping shut, and she sighed. "So, you're telling me that you've never been to school once in your entire life."

Luffy looked away from the dust bunny as it fluttered to the ground, out of the vent's clutches. "Yep," he chirped.

Usopp let out a long breath. "Oh, man..."

Luffy looked back and forth between Usopp and Nami, clueless. "What? Why do you have weird looks on your faces?" Usopp facepalmed, while Nami twisted her shoulder to get a clear look at Arlong, who hadn't raised his head or made any other indication that he was listening.

"Is he going to come to school with us?" she asked.

For a moment, he didn't move, but after a few seconds Arlong finally shut the book he'd been reading. He leaned back in his armchair, studying Luffy intensely with an unreadable expression. "I'll talk with the school," he decided. "See if they have someone to tutor him or something."

Nami nodded, brow creased in thought. Luffy blinked owlishly. "What's a tutoring?" he pondered quietly.

Nami rose to her feet, stretching her arms above her head and stifling a yawn. "Time for bed," Usopp said, also getting up, albeit much slower.

"Eh, Nami," Luffy voiced as she walked past, headed towards the door to her bedroom. "When Arlong says he's gonna talk to a school, is he gonna talk to the building?"

She didn't look back, simply threw her hands in the air and stalked off. Just before her door closed behind her, Luffy thought he could hear her muttering something that sounded like 'how is he still alive' and 'idiot'.

* * *

Zoro knew right off the bat that his foster parent was going to be weird.

Not only did the guy not even bother to answer the door, instead leaving a brief note directing him to where the key was hidden (which was _in _the flower bed, and had to be pulled out by the string tied to it, but only after finding the fist sized rock the other end of the string was attached to), but the sheer number of swords in the guy's freakishly big house was insane. _Insane._

Completely and utterly nuts.

They seemed to be everywhere Zoro looked, on nearly any flat surface, with several stuffed in, literally, every corner. On top of the refrigerator, stacked on chairs; even the couch was being used, and it was now more of a weapons rack than anything else.

Zoro made a 'ch' sound, and unceremoniously dumped his duffel on the floor. The house was quiet, eerily so.

He drifted towards the table, eyes roving over the multitude of weapons cast about. Laid on the tabletop was yet another sword, and Zoro's eyes studied it with vague interest. It's handle was completely black, as was the scabbard it was sheathed in, smooth and glinting in the light. Along the length of the scabbard, however, was a vivid blue dragon. The head was raised, maw open towards the handle, while the body weaved not unlike a churning river, behind it, while the tail curled gracefully around the scabbard's end.

There was something alluring about it, he supposed. Unconsciously, his hand stretched out towards it.

"Don't touch that."

Zoro jerked his hand back, twisting around to meet the cold stare of whom he could only assume was his foster parent.

The man was tall and lean, clothed in a loose white shirt that was left open in the front, and dark pants. He stood firm, calculating, as his golden irises studied Zoro carefully. The teen swallowed.

The man suddenly looked away with a disinterested expression, as if Zoro was nothing more than another piece of furniture laying around. The inclination to put his fist to the man's face came to mind. Without sparing him another glance, the man crossed the room and picked up a sword, seemingly at random, off of the couch. He turned and retreated down the hall, and after a few moment, Zoro heard a door close.

He scowled. The urge to punch the guy in the face was starting to become rather tempting, but remembering the man's unnaturally piercing gaze was enough to make Zoro calm down; he didn't know what the man could do, and it was only his first day there, punching a foster parent in the face probably wouldn't go down well with the foster system.

Once again the house had fallen into silence, and Zoro repressed a sigh.

Looking around, all he saw were swords. There was no television, no radio- heck, he couldn't even spot a book or magazine. For the second time, Zoro questioned if the man was all there in the head.

He dragged his hand down his face, dimly wondering why he had to deal with the weirdos.

That train of thought led him to think of Luffy, and a feeling of regret washed over him. The kid had been so withdrawn when he left, and his stupidity alone was enough to make him worry. But even so, he didn't have a way to reach him. Zoro had no email or phone number that he could contact him by, or even an address, and Luffy wouldn't be listed in any phonebook.

Put in a bad mood, Zoro sat down cross-legged on the floor, crossing his arms over his chest and frowning, though at what or whom, he wasn't sure. Eventually, he stopped his pouting and took the time to look more closely at the variety of swords. Though he really didn't know anything about swords, he'd always found them to be intriguing weapons.

He spotted the sword with the dragon on its scabbard, and after only a moment's hesitation, he got to his feet and walked over to the table. Just to be safe, he glanced over his shoulder to see if that guy was coming back. When he heard nothing, Zoro turned back to the sword.

It was his first time seeing a real one, and as he carefully picked it up off the table, the teen felt a small rush of thrill. Curious, he held the sheathed sword in his right hand, and reached over to grip it by the handle with his left. He slowly drew it from its sheath, and was surprised at how heavy it was.

Zoro set the scabbard back on the tabletop, and returned his attention to the weapon he held in his hand.

It was strangely...liberating. For the first time in a long time, he felt like he had power, like he could _do _something. What, he hadn't a clue.

Zoro was careful to keep a firm grip on the sword, and gently rotated his wrist, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards in satisfaction as the blade moved smoothly through the air. He held his arm out in front of him, the tip of the sword pointing to the wall across the room, and swung the blade down, behind him, and back in front in one fluid rotation of his arm.

When he didn't drop the sword or break anything, he became a bit more confident, and a bit bolder.

He brought it down to his side so it pointed towards the floor. Then he swiftly brought it up, enjoying the whistle the blade made as he did, and tossed it into the air, where it did a full three-sixty. He caught it easily in his right hand, and Zoro felt a pleased smirk spread across his face.

It felt right.

"I see you're not the type to follow rules."

Zoro started, previously unaware of his foster parent watching him from the doorway between what he assumed was the living room, and the hallway the man had disappeared down earlier.

The green-haired teen was generally unaccustomed to feeling anxious or scared, so he was caught off guard by how nervous he suddenly felt. He didn't like how effortlessly this guy could put him on edge, and he shoved down the unwanted emotion down as far as it would go.

"Give me a good reason to, and I will," Zoro retorted. The man made a 'hmmph' sound, and his mouth might have slightly curled upwards in a ghost of a smile, but it could have been Zoro's imagination.

"What's your name?" the man asked.

For some reason, he felt uncomfortable telling this man much of anything, and he had a feeling his slight pause hadn't gone unnoticed. "...Zoro. Roronoa Zoro."

The man's expression of neutrality didn't change. He nodded towards the sword still clutched in Zoro's hand. "You like swords?"

The question held more weight then it should have, and Zoro narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "...Yeah."

Several seconds ticked by, and the man didn't say a word. Zoro debated on whether or not to say something when he spoke. "If you're going to be living with me, you have to follow these rules," he said. "One, do not touch any weapons without my permission."

Zoro could've guessed that one.

"Two, always do what I tell you without question."

He scowled, glaring daggers at the man. He wasn't some pushover, he wasn't going to lie down when someone ordered him to. If there was anything Zoro had managed to keep throughout the years, it was his pride, and he'd be damned if he was going to be some lackey for this weirdo.

The man wasn't fazed in the slightest. On the contrary, he almost seemed amused at the small show of defiance. "Three, you must prove to me your dedication if you're going to train at my hand."

Zoro took a moment to process the last one, blinking. ..What?

"What?"

* * *

**That was a close call, you guys almost lost me to Haikyuu! I saw a trailer for the anime, and it hooked me in (I have an appreciation for sports animes, and a severe weakness for animes that show a lot of passion, be it during a fight or a competition). I've been wanting to watch it really badly, but I know that if I do, I'll be taken away from this anime, and that can't happen if I'm going to continue writing this fic!**

**Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed this, it's a tad longer than usual because I was testing out writing Zoro's story, and I kind of got carried away (I'm a wee bit obsessed with swords)...I don't do much planning at all for the plot, so if you have an idea that you'd like me to throw in, please let me know and I'll do my best! :)**

**Please review! **


	14. Chapter 14

Dear All Readers and Reviewers,

I'm sorry. It's been a hell of a long wait for you, especially if you're a big fan of this story. Honestly, I haven't been able to write any more because I simply don't like it. I love the story, as it took a lot of time to piece together (this fanfic so far barely covers the beginning of the plot I have in my head), but as I re-read through it, I really can't stand my writing. I don't believe this story deserves the reviews it's gotten, so I'm deciding to end it here.

However, I am not abandoning the story itself. I'm more or less doing a rewrite, which will not stray far from this fanfic's content, but will hopefully be much better.

I don't know when the rewrite will be up, but I'll do my best to work on it as much as I can, if any of you are still interested in reading it.

Thank you to everyone who's read and reviewed this fic, it means the world to me.


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